Tennessee Williams (1911-1983) was America’s greatest playwright. Williams. He is best known for his plays, A Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and The Glass Menagerie. He wrote more than 30 full-length plays. The turning point in his career occurred in 1944 with the production of The Glass Menagerie, which won a New York Critics Circle Award. The financial returns from the production freed up more time for him to write. His next piece of work, written in Mexico, was a play titled Poker Night, eventually retitled A Streetcar Named Desire, his masterpiece. Streetcar… won Williams his second New York Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama (1948). The original Broadway Streetcar… cast included Jessica Tandy, Marlon Brando, Karl Malden and Kim Hunter. Two years later, Laurence Olivier directed the London premiere starring Vivien Leigh and Bonar Colleano. In 1951, the film version of A Streetcar Named Desire was directed by Elia Kazan and won four Academy Awards. Tennessee wrote other astonishing plays such as Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Camino Real, Sweet Bird of Youth, Orpheus Descending, Small Craft Warnings, Suddenly Last Summer, The Night of the Iguana, The Rose Tattoo, Summer and Smoke, Vieux Carré and Something Cloudy Something Clear.
Tennessee Williams
