Friday, August 17, 2018

An Exclusive TWTC New Orleans Timeline!



TENNESSEE & NEW ORLEANS

A TWTC timeline

  • 1718 - New Orleans is founded
  • 1720s-30s - Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop is constructed, though likely it was not a smithy at the time. Eventually, it will be reputed to be one of (if not) the oldest structures used as a bar in the nation.
  • 1803 - The Louisiana Purchase: The United States obtains a vast expanse of land including New Orleans from the French.
  • 1911 - Thomas Lanier Williams is born in Columbus, Mississippi.
  • 1918 - Tom and his family are transplanted from Clarksdale Mississippi to St. Louis, Missouri. This would be New Orleans' 200th year.
  • 1938 - In the last few days of the year, Tom Williams moves to New Orleans for the first time. One of his first homes here is 722 Toulouse Street, where he stays in the attic of the rooming house lorded over by a domineering landlady. He becomes acquainted with the Quarter characters and locales, including James's Bar, a gay haunt, and Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop, which by this time is a bar. The spot he stayed in just prior to 722 for a few days was 431 Royal Street.
  • 1939 - Tom departs New Orleans to head out west with a teacher named Jim Parrot. During his westward adventures, he's being sought by some famous emissaries of New York theatre who have trouble tracking the vagrant down!
  • 1941 - Williams returned to NOLA to work on some material, and during this time he was a resident of 708 Toulouse and 722 Dumaine Street (not to be confused with 722 Toulouse, from before!)
  • 1944 - The Glass Menagerie opens in a snowstorm in Chicago, but manages to garner critical praise and audience applause. It's headed to Broadway!
  • 1945 - Tom (now Tennessee) has his first big break for The Glass Menagerie, a memory play that is the first in what will be a triptych of his autobiographical works about love, family, and writing. He'll ride the wings of fame all over America and beyond, bringing him back to...
  • 1946 - Tennessee is working on The Poker Night, which will become A Streetcar Named Desire, from his perch at 623 1/2 St Peter Street. During this time, he's dating a local man named Pancho Rodriguez y Gonzalez. On future visits, before he purchases his home, he would stay at the Maison De Ville at 727 Toulouse Street (just across from 722!) when he visited, or he'd get a room at the Monteleone with his grandfather. He also occasioned the Hotel Royal-Orleans until he was turned away with his long-time partner Frank Merlo.
  • 1947 - Streetcar opens on Broadway to great acclaim. It stars Kim Hunter, Karl Malden, Jessica Tandy, and Marlon Brando, and is directed by Elia Kazan. Williams has cemented his place as America's foremost playwright. He takes home his first Pulitzer Prize.
  • 1951 - The film version of Streetcar is released. Vivien Leigh plays Blanche, replacing Jessica Tandy. Through this film, the words of Williams and the spirit of New Orleans is carried across the globe and into the imaginations of millions of people all over the world.
  • 1958 Suddenly Last Summer, another New Orleans play, opens Off-Broadway under a double bill alongside Something Unspoken, which is collectively titled Garden District after the Uptown neighborhood.
  • 1962  - Williams buys his home in the French Quarter at 1014 Dumaine. It's located across the street from Marti's, which will be one of his favorite restaurants for years to come. Local theatre legend Ricky Graham even had the pleasure of seeing Williams around when he worked there later in the playwright's life.
  • 1966 - The Mutilated and The Gnadiges Fraulein open under the collective title Slapstick Tragedy on Broadway. The Mutilated is a Christmas story that takes place in the Quarter.
  • 1975 - Williams releases his Memoirs, which provide a frank account of his life, and particularly of his time in the French Quarter.
  • 1977 - Vieux Carré, the second retrospective play in his autobiographical triptych, opens for a very short run on Broadway. It looks back on the days following his move to New Orleans in 1938/39, and picks up almost where The Glass Menagerie left off.
  • 1981 Something Cloudy, Something Clear completes the triptych of memory plays, following a writer who has relocated to Provincetown, Massachusetts to complete a commercial work meant to be his big break. It picks up (more or less) shortly after the westward hi-jinx of The Writer and Sky in Vieux Carré.
  • 1983 - In January, Williams makes his final visit to 1014 Dumaine Street, the house he sold to Dr. Lutz, who still owns it to this day, with the condition that the playwright could keep quarters there until his death. On February 25, Williams is found dead in his hotel room in New York City. The cause of death is initially reported as choking, but is later amended to the actual cause of death: seconal poisoning. He's buried in St. Louis, but Dr. Kenneth Holditch and a number of other New Orleanians arrange a memorial for Williams at the St. Louis Cathedral on Jackson Square.
  • 1986 - The Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival is established.
  • 2011 - The Comédie Francaise produces A Streetcar Named Desire in Paris. It is the first American play to be produced in the Salle Richelieu. This is the year Williams would have been 100.
  • 2015 - The Tennessee Williams Theatre Company of New Orleans is founded as the first theatre company to focus on the works of America's Greatest Playwright, right here in his spiritual home.
  • 2016 - TWTC produces the world premiere of The Strange Play, which takes place in a French Quarter courtyard and is likely to have been completed during or shortly after his first stay in the Quarter in 1938/39.
  • 2018 - New Orleans turns 300. TWTC celebrates with its own triptych of New Orleans plays: Vieux Carré, The Mutilated, and Suddenly Last Summer in its 4th season. 
    A Fabulous View of the Quarter by Tennessee Williams

Don't forget to grab your tickets to Vieux Carré, now running through August 25th! Experience TW's French Quarter for yourself at the Marigny Opera House featuring local legends Adella Gautier, Janet Shea, Tracey Collins, Kyle Daigrepont, and more!
www.twtheatrenola.com

Bonus: A Fabulous View of Tennessee from the Quarter.