Audiobooks by Tennessee Williams

At the core of the drama is Brick, an alcoholic son mourning the death of his friend, Skipper, and his strained marriage to Maggie. Maggie, resilient yet desperate for love, grapples with Brick's emotional withdrawal. The family is entrenched in mendacity, with each member harboring secrets, particularly about Big Daddy's terminal cancer. As the layers of deception unravel, characters confront uncomfortable truths, and the Southern setting intensifies the tension. Williams masterfully explores identity, truth, and the consequences of denial. The title, 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,' symbolizes the characters' internal struggles and societal expectations. The play's success lies in its exploration of taboo subjects, richly drawn characters, and evocative dialogue. Williams captures Southern speech's nuances, infusing authenticity. The stifling heat enhances the palpable unease. 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof' resonates for its bold portrayal of human frailty, earning critical acclaim and enduring as a classic in American literature and theater.

Tennessee Williams (Author), Troy W. Hudson (Narrator)

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Tennessee Williams: A BBC Radio Drama Collection: A Streetcar Named Desire, A Glass Menagerie, Sprin

A collection of BBC Radio full-cast dramatisations of plays by Tennessee Williams, plus bonus material. Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tennessee Williams is one of the three most important American dramatists of the 20th Century, alongside Arthur Miller and Eugene O'Neill. Acclaimed for their lyrical language, dark themes and vivid portrayal of the American South, his works have spawned several Oscar-winning films and been translated and performed worldwide. Collected here are some of the best, beginning with the play that launched Williams' career: The Glass Menagerie. Telling the story of a family in crisis in 1930s St Louis, it is one of his most autobiographical works, and a timeless evocation of lost love and loneliness. It is introduced by Williams' biographer, John Lahr, and stars Anastasia Hille, George MacKay, Patsy Ferran and Sope Dirisu. Next up is his masterpiece A Streetcar Named Desire. With an introduction by author Sarah Churchwell, it stars Olivier Award-winning actress Anne-Marie Duff as damaged Southern belle Blanche Dubois, pushed to the brink of sanity by her explosive brother-in-law Stanley Kowalski (Matthew Needham). It is followed by one of Williams' earliest plays, Spring Storm, about Heavenly Critchfield, a young woman forced to decide between a respectable suitor and a handsome, wild, lover. Liz White stars as Heavenly, with Matthew Malarkey and Michael Thomson. First broadcast on Radio 4 in 2006, Tennessee's Women comprises five one-act plays: This Property is Condemned, Something Unspoken, The Long Goodbye, Portrait of a Madonna and 27 Wagons Full of Cotton. Among the casts are Maria Watton-Graham, Barbara Jefford, Elizabeth McGovern, Nick Sayce, Eleanor Bron and Gerard Murphy. Also included is the world premiere of one of Williams' last screenplays, Secret Places of the Heart, starring Sheila Gish and Ian Hogg. In addition, three bonus programmes take an in-depth look at the iconic playwright. John Lahr's evocative biography, Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh, draws on Williams's poems, journals and correspondence to create a compelling portrait of his life and career; Frost Over America: Tennessee Williams features David Frost in conversation with the author; and in Cat on A Hot Tin Roof, Kwame Kwei-Armah investigates the creative influence of Williams' childhood home on his writing. Cast and credits Written by Tennessee Williams First published 1937 (Spring Storm), 1944 (The Glass Menagerie), 1946 (This Property is Condemned, The Long Goodbye, Portrait of a Madonna, Wagons Full of Cotton), 1947 (A Streetcar Named Desire), 1953 (Something Unspoken), 1984 (Secret Places of the Heart) The Glass Menagerie First broadcast BBC Radio 3, 8 July 2018 A Streetcar Named Desire First broadcast BBC Radio 3, 26 March 2017 Broadcast by arrangement with the University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee Spring Storm First broadcast BBC Radio 3, 6 March 2011 Tennessee's Women 1. This Property is Condemned 2. Something Unspoken 3. The Long Goodbye 4. Portrait of a Madonna 5. 27 Wagons Full Of Cotton First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 23-27 January 2006 Secret Places of the Heart First broadcast BBC Radio 3, 4 November 1988 Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 22-26 September 2014 Frost over America: Tennessee Williams Interviewer: David Frost Interviewee: Tennessee Williams First broadcast BBC One, 15 July 1970 Cat on A Hot Tin Roof- an audio documentary Presented by Kwame Kwei-Armah First broadcast BBC Radio 2, 4 August 2009 © 2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. (P) 2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

Tennessee Williams (Author), Anne-Marie Duff, Celia Imrie, Damian Lewis, Eleanor Bron, Elizabeth Mcgovern, Kwame Kwei-Armah, Miranda Richardson, Pippa Bennett-Warner (Narrator)

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The Glass Menagerie

Tennessee Williams (Author), Yosef Kent (Narrator)

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The Glass Menagerie: A BBC Radio 3 full-cast production

Anastasia Hille stars as Amanda Wingfield and George MacKay as her son Tom in BBC Radio 3's landmark production of Tennessee Williams' masterpiece Tennessee Williams's iconic play tells the story of a family trapped in their own unhappy situation and the shattering of their quiet existence when is stranger is brought home. Tom shares the cramped and claustrophobic tenement home with his over-bearing mother, Amanda and painfully shy sister, Laura. He works in a warehouse but dreams of becoming a poet, escaping his mundane life. Laura hides at home lacking the confidence to engage meaningfully with the outside world, preferring instead to lose herself in her collection of fragile glass animals. Amanda sells magazine subscriptions over the phone and commits herself to finding a match for her daughter. One day, Tom succumbs to his mother's pressure and brings home a gentleman caller... Creating a dream-like atmosphere, The Glass Menagerie has remained one of Williams' most touching, tender and painful works. Tennessee Williams's drama is one of the most loved and well-known stage plays of the 20th century. It won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award in 1945 and paved the way for Williams to become one of America's most highly regarded playwrights. The Glass Menagerie is introduced by John Lahr, author of the acclaimed biography Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh. Cast: Amanda . . . . . Anastasia Hille Tom . . . . . George MacKay Laura . . . . . Patsy Ferran Jim . . . . . Sope Dirisu Directed and produced by Sasha Yevtushenko Sound design by Peter Ringrose and Caleb Knightley. Production co-ordinator: Mabel Wright Music for violin arranged and performed by Bogdan Vacarescu

Tennessee Williams (Author), Anastasia Hille, George Mackay, Patsy Ferran, Sope Dirisu (Narrator)

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The Glass Menagerie

Menagerie was Williams' first popular success and launched the brilliant, if somewhat controversial, career of our preeminent lyric playwright. Since its premiere in Chicago in 1944, with the legendary Laurette Taylor in the role of Amanda, the play has been the bravura piece for great actresses from Jessica Tandy to Joanne Woodward, and it is studied and performed in classrooms and theaters around the world. A new introduction by prominent Williams scholar Robert Bray, editor of The Tennessee Williams Annual Review, reappraises the play more than half a century after it won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award: 'More than fifty years after telling his story of a family whose lives form a triangle of quiet desperation, Williams's mellifluous voice still resonates deeply and universally.' This edition of The Glass Menagerie also includes Williams' essay on the impact of sudden fame on a struggling writer, 'The Catastrophe of Success', as well as a short section of Williams' own 'Production Notes'.

Tennessee Williams (Author), Joseph Kent (Narrator)

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Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof first heated up Broadway in 1955 with its gothic American story of brothers vying for their dying father's inheritance amid a whirlwind of sxuality, untethered in the person of Maggie the Cat. The play also daringly showcased the burden of sxuality repressed in the agony of her husband, Brick Pollitt. In spite of the public controversy Cat stirred up, it was awarded the Pulitzer Prize and the Drama Critics Circle Award for that year. Williams, as he so often did with his plays, rewrote Cat on a Hot Tin Roof for many years?the present version was originally produced at the American Shakespeare Festival in 1974 with all the changes that made Williams finally declare the text to be definitive, and was most recently produced on Broadway in the 2003-04 season. This definitive edition also includes Williams' essay 'Person-to-Person,' Williams' notes on the various endings, and a short chronology of the author's life. One of America's greatest living playwrights, as well as a friend and colleague of Williams, Edward Albee has written a concise introduction to the play from a playwright's perspective, examining the candor, sensuality, power, and impact of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof then and now.

Tennessee Williams (Author), Edward Albee (Narrator)

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Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Tennessee Williams (Author), Edward Albee (Narrator)

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Memoirs

When Memoirs was first published in 1975, it created quite a bit of turbulence in the media-though long self-identified as a gay man, Williams's candor about his love life, sexual encounters, and drug use was found shocking in and of itself, and such revelations by America's greatest living playwright were called 'a raw display of private life' by the New York Times Book Review. As it turns out, Williams's look back at his life is not quite so scandalous as it once seemed; he recalls his childhood in Mississippi and St. Louis, his prolonged struggle as a 'starving artist,' the 'overnight' success of The Glass Menagerie in 1945, the death of his long-time companion Frank Merlo in 1962, and his confinement to a psychiatric ward in 1969 and subsequent recovery from alcohol and drug addiction, all with the same directness, compassion, and insight that epitomize his plays. And, of course, Memoirs is filled with Williams's amazing friends from the worlds of stage, screen, and literature as he often hilariously, sometimes fondly-sometimes not-remembers them: Laurette Taylor, Gore Vidal, Truman Capote, Elia Kazan, Marlon Brando, Vivian Leigh, Carson McCullers, Anna Magnani, Greta Garbo, Elizabeth Taylor, and Tallulah Bankhead, to name a few. Contains mature themes.

Tennessee Williams (Author), P.J. Ochlan (Narrator)

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The Glass Menagerie

Tennessee Williams (Author), Joseph Kent (Narrator)

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A Streetcar Named Desire: A BBC Radio full-cast dramatisation

Anne-Marie Duff stars as Blanche DuBois in BBC Radio 3's landmark production of Tennessee Williams' masterpiece Tennessee Williams's iconic play tells the story of a catastrophic confrontation between fantasy and reality, embodied in the characters of Blanche DuBois and Stanley Kowalski. Blanche DuBois arrives unexpectedly on the doorstep of her sister Stella and her explosive brother-in-law Stanley. Over the course of one hot and steamy New Orleans summer, Blanche's fragile façade slowly crumbles, wreaking havoc on Stella and Stanley's already turbulent relationship... Embodying the turmoil and drama of a changing nation, A Streetcar Named Desire strips Williams's tortured characters of their illusions, leaving a wake of destruction in their path. Tennessee Williams's 1947 drama is one of the most loved and well-known stage plays of the 20th century. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award in 1948, and the 1951 film adaptation picked up four Oscars. In this compelling radio dramatisation, Blanche is played by Olivier Award-winning actress Anne-Marie Duff, with a stellar cast including Matthew Needham as Stanley and Pippa Bennett-Warner as Stella. Cast: Blanche: Anne-Marie Duff Stella: Pippa Bennett-Warner Stanley: Matthew Needham Mitch: John Heffernan Steve: David Sturzaker Eunice: Sarah Ridgeway Pablo: John Dougal Mexican Woman: Leila Arias Collector: Tom Forrister Nurse: Georgie Glen Dramatised by Sarah Churchwell Produced and directed by Sasha Yevtushenko

Tennessee Williams (Author), Anne-Marie Duff, David Sturzaker, Georgie Glenn, John Dougall, John Heffernan, Leila Arias, Matthew Needham, Pippa Bennett-Warner, Sarah Ridgeway, Tom Forrister (Narrator)

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Crazy Night

From the renowned American playwright Tennessee Williams, a glimpse of college life on the eve of graduation. It's the last day of the academic year, and the students of a small, mid-western university are preparing for a bacchanalian celebration called Crazy Night. Our chaperone for the evening is Phil, a freshman on the verge of flunking out, who roves the fraternities in search of beer, women, and the meaning of life. It's just after the Great Crash, with Prohibition in sobering effect-a bleak time for college graduates and drop-outs, who have one more night to do everything, before they enter a world that offers them nothing. "Crazy Night" by Tennessee Williams is one of 20 short stories within Mulholland Books's Strand Originals series, featuring thrilling stories by the most legendary authors in the Strand Magazine archives. View the full series list at mulhollandbooks.com and read them all!

Tennessee Williams (Author), Brian Hatch (Narrator)

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The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone

The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone is vintage Tennessee Williams. It is the story of a fiftyish wealthy American widow who was most recently a famous stage beauty but is now drifting after the death of her husband. With poignant wit and his own particular brand of relish, Williams charts her drift into an affair with a cruel young gigolo. *Extended track length will prohibit the ability to burn to a standard CD*

Tennessee Williams (Author), Shirley Knight (Narrator)

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