The Tennessee Williams Theatre Company of New Orleans ends its seventh season with Spring Storm by Tennessee Williams this September at The Lower Depths Theatre on the campus of Loyola University New Orleans, directed by Salvatore Mannino. Mannino recently directed Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time for Le Petit Theatre du Vieux Carre. He serves as artistic director of the Loyola University New Orleans Department of Theatre and Dance, where TWTC has a professional residency since 2019.
Spring Storm serves as an origin story for many of Williams’ signature tragic heroines. It was written from 1937-38 when the playwright was in college and during his travels to New Orleans and beyond. It never received a staging in his lifetime, but in its pages are planted the seeds for Amanda and Laura Wingfield of The Glass Menagerie and Blanche DuBois of A Streetcar Named Desire among other characters from his popular plays.
The story centers around Heavenly Critchfield, a small town woman torn between the choice of her longtime boyfriend and a desire to leave town to start a new life and the chance to become the wealthiest housewife in town for a mysterious old schoolmate just returned home. Both men are making moves that benefit themselves, and Heavenly realizes she has to choose based on someone she’s never been asked to consider: herself. All the while, her mother, caught in her family’s former glory, hopes she’ll make the choice to elevate their reputation. What Heavenly doesn’t realize is that danger and jealousy lurks around every crepe myrtle tree and azalea bush in this seemingly sweet town…and there will be deadly consequences to her decisions. Set against the backdrop of the post-Depression Mississippi Delta, the play is full of Southern Gothic Easter eggs for longtime Williams fans and is replete with small town gossip and drama for first-time Williams initiates.
An all local cast includes Nicole Miller as Heavenly (Rivertown’s Matilda), Matthew Raetz as Dick Miles (TSF’s Romeo & Juliet), Matthew Boese as Arthur Shannon (TWTC’s Sweet Bird of Youth) and. Charlie Carr as Hertha; and features Tracey E. Collins, Margeaux Fanning, Miles Hamauei, Delphine J, and Maile Zox.
The production team for the production includes Nick Shackleford, Diane Baas, Eric Porter, Grace Smith, Puck, Augustin J Correro, and Madeline Taliancich. This season of the Tennessee Williams theatre Company of New Orleans is supported by a grant from The New Orleans Theatre Association (NOTA) and The New Orleans Tourism & Cultural Fund (NOTCF).
“We are thrilled to end this season on this early Tennessee Williams treasure trove filled with his ideas for future masterpieces. It sets the stage for an exciting next season when audiences will see so many of these ideas explored. We can’t wait to share all of these amazing plays with our audiences, starting with Spring Storm,” says TWTC Founding Co-Artistic Director Nick Shackleford.
ABOUT THE TENNESSEE WILLIAMS THEATRE COMPANY OF NEW ORLEANS (TWTC):
The Tennessee Williams Theatre Company of New Orleans is a year-round professional theatre company committed to producing captivating, exciting, and moving plays with a major focus on the works of America's greatest playwright, Tennessee Williams. In the city which Williams called home and from which he drew abundant inspiration, The Tennessee Williams Theatre Company of New Orleans will engage our community and cultivate its relationship with Williams. We will accomplish this by mounting performances of well-known and rarely produced Williams plays, contributing to the scholarship of Williams and New Orleans, and educating our community onstage and off with unique and stimulating programming. TWTC is a proud member of the Theatre Communication Group (TCG).
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