Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams (1911-1983) was an important and influential American playwright. He is perhaps best known for two works: The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire, both of which drew from his life experiences for inspiration.
Life
Tennessee (born Thomas Lanier Williams) was born and raised in Columbus, Mississippi.[1] He was admitted to the University of Missouri in 1929. It was there that he saw a performance of Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen and subsequently decided he wanted to become a playwright.[2] He was able to have 2 of his early plays produced in 1937, and the following year, he moved to New Orleans and changed his name to Tennessee. In 1944, he debuted The Glass Menagerie in Chicago, which, after a successful run, made its way to Broadway. The play helped to establish him as an important American voice in theater. 1947 saw him debut perhaps his most famous play, A Streetcar Named Desire, which would go on to win a Pullitzer prize, the first of 2 he would win in his career (the other one being for his 1955 play, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Tennessee would go on to write regularily until his death in 1983.
Legacy
Tennessee Williams is generally recognized as one of the greatest American playwrights, of his or any other time.[3] His plays are performed regularily in theaters across North America to this day.
Works
Williams was very prolific and left behind a significant body of work, including:
American Blues (1939)
The Glass Menagerie (1945)
A Streetcar Named Desire (1947)
One Arm and other stories (1948)
Summer and Smoke (1948)
The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1950)
The Rose Tattoo (1951)
Camino Real (1953)
Hard Candy, a book of stories (1954)
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955)
In the Winter of Cities (1956)
Baby Doll (1956)
Orpheus Descending (Battle of Angels, 1957)
Suddenly Last Summer (1958)
Sweet Bird of Youth (1959)
A Period of Adjustement (1960)
Night of the Iguana (1961)
Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore (1962)
The Eccentricities of a Nightingale (1964)
Kingdom of Earth (1967)
In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel (1969)
Dragon Country (1970)
Small Craft Warnings (1973)
The Two Character Play (Out Cry, 1973)
Eight Mortal Ladies Possessed (1974)
Moise and the World of Reason (1975)
Memoirs (1975)
The Red Devil Battery Sign (1976)
Androgine, Mon Amour (1977)
Vieux Carré (1978)
A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur (1978)
Clothes for a Summer Hotel (1980)
Something Cloudy, Something Clear (1981)
27 Wagons Full of Cotton (1982)
Five O'clock Angel (1991)
Collected Stories (1994) [4]