Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh (93 page)

.

In an interview on David Frost’s television show, Williams discusses his homosexuality.

A book of plays,

, is published.

1971

Williams breaks with his agent Audrey Wood. Bill Barnes assumes his representation; then Mitch Douglas, in 1978; and Luis Sanjurjo, in 1981.

In a December rally organized by Norman Mailer at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York, Williams speaks out against the war in Vietnam.

1972

Williams is awarded honorary degrees by the University of Hartford and Purdue University.

opens Off-Broadway on April 2 and runs for a total of six months, first at the Truck and Warehouse Theater and later at the New Theatre, where Williams plays the role of Doc to boost ticket sales.

1973

, a revised version of

, opens on Broadway on March 1 and runs for just over a week.

1974

, a book of short stories, is published.

1975

Williams is presented with the Medal of Honor for Literature from the National Arts Club.

The novel

is published by Simon and Schuster and

is published by Doubleday.

1976

(

) opens at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco on January 20.

The final version of

(

) is published.

closes during its out-of-town Boston tryout in June.

premieres on Broadway on November 23 and runs for two weeks.

Williams serves as Jury President at the Cannes Film Festival.

He is elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

1977

opens on Broadway on May 11 and closes within five days.

His second volume of poetry,

, is published.

1978

premieres at the Alliance Theater in Atlanta, Georgia, and a revised version premieres the following year at the Hippodrome Theater in Gainesville, Florida.

A selection of his essays,

, is published.

1979

opens Off-Broadway on January 10 at the Hudson Guild Theatre, where it runs for a month.

runs as a workshop production Off-Broadway at the Jean Cocteau Repertory Theatre.

He is presented with a Kennedy Centers Honors medal by President Jimmy Carter at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

1980

premieres on January 25 for a limited run at the Tennessee Williams Performing Arts Center in Key West, Florida.

On March 26 his last Broadway production,

, opens and then closes after fifteen performances.

On June 1 Williams’s mother, Edwina, dies at the age of ninety-five.

He is awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Jimmy Carter.

1981

premieres Off-Broadway on August 24 at the Jean Cocteau Repertory Theatre, where it runs in repertory into the next year.

, his free adaptation of Chekov’s

, premieres November 12 at the Playhouse Theatre in Vancouver.

1982

The second of two versions of

opens for a limited run at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago on May 8.

A workshop production of

is produced in August at the Williamstown Theater Festival.

Williams receives an honorary degree from Harvard University.

1983

Williams is found dead in his room at the Hotel Elysée in New York City on February 25. He is later buried in St. Louis.

is published.

1984

is published.

1985

His

, with an introduction by Gore Vidal, is published.

1988

is published.

1995

Lyle Leverich’s biography,

, which chronicles Williams’s early life, is published by Crown Publishers.

is published.

1996

On September 5, Rose Williams dies at the age of eighty-six in Tarrytown, New York.

The rights to all writings by Williams transfer to the University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee, and his papers are a bequest to Harvard University.

, in a version revised by Williams, opens at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park on September 5 and is published in 1997.

1998

, directed by Trevor Nunn, premieres at the Royal National Theatre in London on March 5 and later moves to the Alley Theater in Houston, Texas.

1999

premiers at the Actors Repertory of Texas, Austin, on November 6 and is published the same year.

On November 25,

opens on Broadway.

2000

Volume 1 of

is published.

is published.

2001

is published.

2002

is published.

2004

is published.

Volume 2 of

is published.

2005

-

is published.

2006

Williams’s personal journals are published by Yale University Press under the title

.

2008

and

are published.

Dakin Williams dies at the age of eighty-nine in Belleville, Illinois.

2009

is published.

2011

is published.

Celebrations and productions around the world are dedicated to Williams during his centennial year.

The Comédie-Française in Paris produces

, staged by American director Lee Breuer, the first play by a non-European playwright in the company’s 331-year history.

Notes

BDC—Betty Davis Collection, Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Boston University.

BRTC—Billy Rose Theatre Collection, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

Columbia—Tennessee Williams Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University.

by Tennessee Williams. Edited by David Roessel and Nicholas Moschovakis. New York: New Directions, 2002.

—

, by Tennessee Williams. New York: New Directions, 1985.

CUCOHC—Columbia University Center for Oral History Collection, Columbia University.

—

, edited by Albert J. Devlin. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1986.

Delaware

Tennessee Williams Collection, Special Collections, University of Delaware Library.

, by Margaret Webster. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1972.

Duke—Carson McCullers Papers, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Duke University.

ESC—Ed Sherin Collection, Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Boston University.

—

, by Tennessee Williams. With commentary by Maria St. Just. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990.

Harvard—Tennessee Williams Papers, Harvard Theatre Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University.

Houston—Cheryl Crawford Collection, Courtesy of Special Collections, University of Houston Libraries.

HRC—Tennessee Williams Collection, Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin.

Huntington—Manuscripts Department, Huntington Library.

ISC—Irene Mayer Selznick Collection, Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Boston University.

JLC—John Lahr Collection, Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Boston University.

JLI—John Lahr Interview. John Lahr Collection, Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Boston University.

—

, by Elia Kazan. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1988.

by Elia Kazan. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009.

—

vol. 1:

, by Tennessee Williams. Edited by Albert J. Devlin and Nancy M. Tischler. New York: New Directions, 2000.

—

vol. 2:

, by Tennessee Williams. Edited by Albert J. Devlin, co-edited by Nancy M. Tischler. New York: New Directions, 2004.

by Marguerite Courtney. New York: Limelight Editions, 1984.

LLC—Lyle Leverich Collection, attached to the John Lahr Collection, Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Boston University.

LLI—Lyle Leverich Interview. Lyle Leverich Collection, attached to the John Lahr Collection, Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Boston University.

LOA1

, by Tennessee Williams. New York: Library of America, 2000.

LOA2—

, by Tennessee Williams. New York: Library of America, 2000.

—

by Tennessee Williams. New York: Doubleday, 1975.

Maryland—Katherine Anne Porter Collection, University of Maryland Libraries.

Morgan—Carter Burden Collection of American Literature, Morgan Library and Museum.

Ms.—manuscript.

Ms. “Memoirs”—“Memoirs” (unpublished manuscript), by Tennessee Williams. Lyle Leverich Collection, attached to the John Lahr Collection, Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Boston University.

—

, by Tennessee Williams. Edited by Margaret Bradham Thornton. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2006.

by Tennessee Williams

Edited by John S. Bak. New York: New Directions, 2009.

—

, by Audrey Wood, with Max Wilk. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1981.

—

, by Edwina Dakin Williams, as told to Lucy Freeman. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1963.

, by Tennessee Williams. London: Vintage Classics, 1999.

Sewanee—Archives of the University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee.

THNOC—Fred W. Todd Tennessee Williams Collection, Williams Research Center, The Historic New Orleans Collection.

—

by Dakin Williams and Shepherd Mead. New York: Arbor House, 1983.

—

,

by Tennessee Williams