Kickstarter

Some Fun Facts on our fascinating playwright.

1. Williams was born “Thomas Lanier Williams III,” but changed his name to “Tennessee” at the age of 28. Different sources report various reasons for the new moniker. Some claim he received the name from a college roommate, others argue that he picked it to pay tribute to his ancestors who lived in the state of Tennessee, and some think he simply wanted to break with his past and conceal his age.

2. In college, Williams was known for skipping classes and missing exams simply because he forgot about them.

3. On at least two occasions before becoming a noted playwright, Williams pawned his typewriter to buy food.

4. Williams briefly worked as an elevator operator at a hotel in New York.

5. Williams once referred to his fame and fortune as “the catastrophe of success.”

6. Williams’ advice to young playwrights: “Don’t bore the audience! I mean, even if you have to resort to totally arbitrary killing on stage, or pointless gunfire, at least it’ll catch their attention and keep them awake. Just keep the thing going any way you can.”

7. Williams changed his birth date from 1911 to 1914 to enter play-writing contests that he would have been too old to enter otherwise. Six days before his 28th birthday, Williams was awarded $100 for winning a playwright contest for those 25 and younger, which he entered illegally by lying about his age.

8. Near the end of his life, Williams expressed interest in refilming A Streetcar Named Desire with Meryl Streep playing the part of Blanche DuBois.

9. Due to self-doubt, Williams would often not show up for critical rehearsals and meetings.

10. Playwright Arthur Miller, who viewed Williams as a mentor, once said of him, “He chose a hard life that requires the skin of an alligator and the heart of a poet.”

We don't need to say much, because this act speaks for themselves.
Head on over to  The Piledrivers and have a listen!

Hey all you crazy backers,

Take a look at these photos from our cast and designer Meet and Greet last night! We grilled, we read some plays, and we made life long friends. Can't wait to do the same with you all at our performances! Share this if you love this. ONLY 4 MORE DAYS to make our goal! Help our final push to the end!

Whether or not we admit it to ourselves, we are all haunted by a truly awful sense of impermanence. I have always had a particularly keen sense of this at New York cocktail parties, and perhaps that is why I drink the martinis almost as fast as I can snatch them from the tray. Horror of insincerity, of not meaning, overhangs these affairs like the cloud of cigarette smoke and the hectic chatter. This horror is the only thing, almost, that is left unsaid at such social functions. These functions are almost always (in a conscious way) like that last dinner of the condemned: where steak or turkey, whatever the doomed man wants, is served in his cell as a mockingly cruel reminder of what the great-big-little-transitory world had to offer.
About their lives, people ought to remember that when they are finished, everything in them will be contained in a marvelous state of repose. The rush is temporary. The great and only possible dignity of man lies in his power deliberately to choose certain moral values, like a character in a play, immured against the corrupting rush of time. Snatching the eternal out of the desperately fleeting is the great magic trick of human existence.

Hey all!

Check out one of the music acts we have booked as part of this festive weekend! Share with you friends - because we are very excited to have them.

Please help get the word out there as we are on our final push with only 9 days left to raise the money and make this Tennessee Williams fest a reality!

PigPen Theatre Co. playing below!