Special significance

I was interviewed yesterday by a student at DePaul University, who is preparing a presentation for an Intro to Theatre class and chose to present the history of Eclipse Theatre Company.
Before the interview, she emailed me a quick list of the questions she wanted to focus on. The first question on that list set the [...]

Bald Ridge

Bald Ridge is another location referenced in Candles to the Sun as a place where the boys would shoot squirrels. In my research there were several Bald Ridge locations including a Bald Ridge Reservation in northeast Alabama. I found a Bald Ridge in Jefferson County, Alabama, which is not necessarily close to Clay [...]

Living and Writing: Part II

At an Eclipse post show discussion during the Gilman season I recall an audience member asking a question regarding what the actors did outside of performing in that particular play. Every single actor on stage worked a 9-5 job during the week and moonlighted as actors during their evenings and weekends. The [...]

Living and Writing

Those that have dedicated their lives to the arts generally live paycheck to paycheck, especially in the beginning. That still rang true when Tennessee Williams started his career in the 1930’s.
Williams states that he wrote through his young adult years “not with any hope of making a living at it, but because I found [...]

Britney Spears to play Blanche DuBois

Part of me hopes this is a terrible April Fool’s Day rumor; part of me is fascinated by the idea of it:
Britney Spears to star in West End show?
A “source” – who I assume is from the London theatre that’s allegedly offering her the role, but I guess it could have been anyone – explained [...]

Tune in to 1530AM this afternoon

I’ll be on “Out N’ About” this afternoon from 2-3pm on WJJG 1530AM, talking with host Ronnie Kelpsas about Candles to the Sun, Williams, Eclipse, and whatever else people want to talk about – I’m told it’s a call-in show, and I’m excited to hear what people have to say. Tune in, call in, tell [...]

Friday photo rescue

Suddenly, Last Summer, from the 1999 Tennessee Williams season.

Opening night

Candles to the Sun opened last Saturday night, for only the third fourth time since Tom Williams was sitting in the audience in 1937. I couldn’t get a seat for myself (never a bad problem to have), but from everything I heard it was a wonderful show, and a great reception with the actors and [...]

Singer of Darkness

Even lighter blogging than expected (partly because I got more sick than I expected), but I promise we’ll be back in full force soon. I did manage to put together a quick video of the prelude to Candles to the Sun: the sonnet “Singer of Darkness,” which Williams wrote just before Candles, and which our [...]

The Battle of Angels

Battle of Angels Williams’ first Broadway production, produced in 1940, closed after 2 weeks in New York. This early failure taught the young playwright Williams two key lessons.
First, Tennessee says he felt gullible at the time as he let in a lot of changes of which he did not approve into the final [...]

Can You See the Light: Part III

Continuing with the name references. Williams‘ gave one of the pivotal characters the name Fern.
The plant fern is popular for its ability to grow and thrive with a minimal amount of light.  Fern in Candles is living in what Williams has set as a bleak, dark place.
A fern is also an ancient heraldic symbol [...]

Red Hills Salamander

Red Hills isn’t only a location in Candles to the Sun:
The Red Hills Salamander is also the state amphibian of Alabama and is a threatened species, due in most part to people destroying its habitat.
You can learn more about the Red Hills of Alabama and the Salamander in this video clip.

Can You See the Light Part 2

I feel like I should get in on this – as the lighting designer for Candles to the Sun, I’ve been thinking a lot about Williams’ use of light and dark as metaphors throughout the script. His plays are always a challenge and a joy for a lighting designer (I designed our lights for Eccentricities [...]

Red Hills Alabama

Now generally a large part of my job as a dramaturg is to research the time and location of the play, which isn’t always as easy as it sounds. For example, Williams‘ Candles to the Sun is set in the Red Hills in Alabama. In my research for Candles I could not find [...]

Can You See the Light Part I

First an easy one regarding Williams references to ‘light.’
One of the characters in Candles to the Sun is named “Luke“, which literally means “light”, which Williams points out (quite blatantly) in the dialogue.
HESTER: What did it say the boy’s name was?
BRAM: She said it was Luke.
MISS WALLACE: Yes, Luke, a good old [...]

a.k.a. Tom

Tennessee Williams wasn’t always Tennessee, he was born Thomas Lanier Williams in Mississippi. In fact, he was Tom Williams when he wrote Candles to the Sun, he was nicknamed Tennessee during his college days by his fraternity brothers and didn’t start using the name Tennessee until later. You can read more about his [...]

Tablework

For the first few rehearsals of Candles to the Sun, the cast worked around a table (“tablework” is the fancy name we give it), discussing the script and their characters with director Steven Fedoruk and dramaturg Sarah Moeller, digging into the text before getting up on their feet.
Here’s a quick video from those rehearsals, with [...]

Get the story behind the story

Almost all of Sarah’s dramaturgical information is now here – the permanent link is on the right hand sidebar. We’ll keep adding to it as we go along, but it’s worth a look now.
This is the same information she prepared for the actors and designers; the detailed research that helps us understand and create this [...]

Ask the Stage Directions

Tennessee Williams is well-known for the poetry in his characters’ dialogue, but many who see his plays performed in theaters around the world never get to appreciate the incredible poetry in his stage directions. Fewer still understand just how helpful his stage directions can really be – and not just for the designers.
This week’s edition [...]

Second Day of Rehearsal-Let’s Start Diggin’!

To follow on Nat’s last post-
Day Two: This time 16 actors, a director and a dramaturg came through some crazy sleet to start digging into Tennessee Williams’ first full length play, Candles to the Sun. Rehearsal started with a dramaturg session, which, generally speaking, consists of the director and dramaturg unloading piles of [...]

The first read through

Sixteen actors trudged through the snow and the creepy fog last night to gather for a first read through of Candles to the Sun – with members of the design team and a few friends there to listen, the cast got their first opportunity to play together with Williams’ language and the rest of us [...]

The Day on Which a Man Dies

We’re not the only ones in town currently working on a Tennessee Williams premiere – SummerNITE, the Northern Illinois Theatre Ensemble, is opening the world premiere of The Day on Which a Man Dies tonight at Links Hall in Wrigleyville.
The web site describes the show (written in 1959) as a “visionary text”:
[d]irectly influenced by Butoh [...]

The Lamp

We’re about to start rehearsals for Candles to the Sun, the first production in our 2-year Celebration Series. I’ll be adding our dramaturgical research to the blog soon, as well as some of the notes, sketches and images that the designers are kicking around as we begin the process.
I wanted to start, though, where this [...]

The beginning of the ride

In the spring of 1999, I played a young boy in Tennessee Williams’s Confessional (I think the character’s name was actually YOUNG BOY, or maybe just BOY) who was on the last legs of a bike ride from Iowa to Mexico. I wore ridiculously short shorts and a T-shirt that said, in big block letters [...]