Lord Byron's Love Letter

Thomas Lanier “Tennessee” Williams III (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983) was an American playwright. Along with Eugene O’Neill and Arthur Miller, he is considered among the three foremost playwrights of 20th-century American drama. After years of obscurity, he became suddenly famous with The Glass Menagerie (1944), heralding a string of successes, including A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), Cat on A Hot Tin Roof (1955), and Sweet Bird of Youth (1959). His later work attempted a new style that did not appeal to audiences, and alcohol and drug dependence further inhibited his creative output. A Streetcar Named Desire is often numbered on short lists of the finest American plays of the 20th century. After some early attempts at relationships with women, by the late 1930s Williams had accepted his homosexuality. Much of Williams’ most acclaimed work was adapted for the cinema. He also wrote short stories, poetry, essays and a volume of memoirs. In 1979, four years before his death, Williams was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame. Elia Kazan (who directed many of Williams’ greatest successes) said of Williams: “Everything in his life is in his plays, and everything in his plays is in his life.” By 1959 he had earned two Pulitzer Prizes, three New York Drama Critics’ Circle Awards, three Donaldson Awards, and a Tony Award. After the extraordinary successes of the 1940s and 1950s, he had more personal turmoil and theatrical failures in the 1960s and 1970s. Although he continued to write every day, the quality of his work suffered from his increasing alcohol and drug consumption, as well as occasional poor choices of collaborators. Numerous box office failures and relentlessly negative press notices wore down his spirit. His last play, A House Not Meant To Stand, was produced in Chicago in 1982. Despite largely positive reviews, it ran for only 40 performances. Despite the inferior quality of Williams’s work compared to his creative peak 30 years earlier, he continued writing almost without a break. In 1979, four years before his death, he was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame. On February 25, 1983, Williams was found dead at age 71 in his suite at the Hotel Elysée New York. He had choked to death from inhaling a plastic bottle-cap. Though he had expressed a desire to be buried at sea as and where Harte Crane had been, brother Dakin Williams arranged for his burial at Calvary Cemetary, in St. Louis, Missouri, where his mother is buried. Lord Byron’s Love Letter, by Tennessee Williams (Playing time: 18:39)<br /> Starring Louise Latham, Sylvia Short, Jean Nicol and William Smithers (Two spinsters eke out a living peddling a memory.) The post Lord Byron’s Love Letter appeared first on SANTA BARBARA THEATRE OF THE AIR.