1944 December 26: The Glass Menagerie opens in Chicago starring Laurette Taylor.
A group of poems, “The Summer Belvedere,” is published in Five Young American Poets, 1944. (Books listed here are published by New Directions unless otherwise indicated.)
1945 March 25: Stairs to the Roof premieres at the Pasadena Playhouse in California.
March 31: The Glass Menagerie opens on Broadway and wins the Drama Critics Circle Award for best play.
September 25: You Touched Me! opens on Broadway, and is later published by Samuel French.
December 27: Wagons Full of Cotton and Other Plays is published.
1947 Summer: Meets Frank Merlo (1929–1963) in Provincetown—starting in 1948 they become lovers and companions, and remain together for fourteen years.
December 3: A Streetcar Named Desire, directed by Elia Kazan and starring Jessica Tandy, Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter, and Karl Malden, opens on Broadway and wins the Pulitzer Prize and the Drama Critics Circle Award.
1948 October 6: Summer and Smoke opens on Broadway and closes in just over three months.
1949 January: One Arm and Other Stories is published.
1950 The novel The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone is published.
The film version of The Glass Menagerie is released.
1951 February 3: The Rose Tattoo opens on Broadway starring Maureen Stapleton and Eli Wallach and wins the Tony Award for best play of the year.
The film version of A Streetcar Named Desire is released starring Vivian Leigh and Marlon Brando.
1952 April 24: A revival of Summer and Smoke directed by José Quintero and starring Geraldine Page opens off-Broadway at the Circle at the Square and is a critical success.
The National Institute of Arts and Letters inducts Williams as a member.
1953 March 19: Camino Real opens on Broadway and after a harsh critical reception closes within two months.
1954 A book of stories, Hard Candy, is published in August.
1955 March 24: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof opens on Broadway directed by Elia Kazan and starring Barbara Bel Geddes, Ben Gazzara and Burl Ives. Cat wins the Pulitzer Prize and the Drama Critics Circle Award.
The film version of The Rose Tattoo, for which Anna Magnani later wins an Academy Award, is released.
1956 The film Baby Doll, with a screenplay by Williams and directed by Elia Kazan, is released amid some controversy and is blacklisted by Catholic leader Cardinal Spellman.
June: In the Winter of Cities, Williams’s first book of poetry, is published.
1957 March 21: Orpheus Descending, a revised version of Battle of Angels, directed by Harold Clurman, opens on Broadway but closes after two months.
1958 February 7: Suddenly Last Summer and Something Unspoken open off-Broadway under the collective title Garden District.
The film version of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is released.
1959 March 10: Sweet Bird of Youth opens on Broadway and runs for three months.
The film version of Suddenly Last Summer, with a screenplay by Gore Vidal, is released.
1960 November 10: The comedy Period of Adjustment opens on Broadway and runs for over four months.
The film version of Orpheus Descending is released under the title The Fugitive Kind.
1961 December 29: The Night of the Iguana opens on Broadway and runs for nearly ten months.
The film versions of Summer and Smoke and The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone are released.
1962 The film versions of Sweet Bird of Youth and Period of Adjustment are released.
1963 January 15: The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore opens on Broadway and closes due to a blizzard and a newspaper strike. It is revived January 1, 1964, starring Tallulah Bankhead and Tab Hunter and closes within a week.
September: Frank Merlo dies of lung cancer.
1964 The film version of Night of the Iguana is released.
1966 February 22: Slapstick Tragedy (The Mutilated and The Gnädiges Fräulein) runs on Broadway for a week.
December: A novella and stories are published under the title The Knightly Quest.
1968 March 27: Kingdom of Earth opens on Broadway under the title The Seven Descents of Myrtle.
The film version of The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore is released under the title Boom!
1969 May 11: In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel opens off-Broadway and runs for three weeks.
Committed by his brother Dakin for three months to the Renard Psychiatric Division of Barnes Hospital in St. Louis.
The film version of Kingdom of Earth is released under the title The Last of the Mobile Hot Shots.
Awarded Doctor of Humanities degree by the University of Missouri and a Gold Medal for Drama by the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
1970 February: A book of plays, Dragon Country, is published.
1971 Williams fires his agent Audrey Wood. Bill Barnes assumes his representation, and then later Mitch Douglas.
1972 April 2: Small Craft Warnings opens off-Broadway.
1973 March 1: Out Cry, the revised version of The Two-Character Play, opens on Broadway.
1974 September: Eight Mortal Ladies Possessed, a book of short stories, is published.
Williams is presented with a Medal of Honor for Literature from the National Arts Club.
1975 The novel Moise and the World of Reason is published by Simon & Schuster and Memoirs is published by Doubleday.
1976 January 20: This Is (An Entertainment) opens in San Francisco at the American Conservatory Theater.
June: The Red Devil Battery Sign closes during its out-of-town tryout in Boston.
November 23: Eccentricities of a Nightingale, a rewritten version of Summer and Smoke, opens in New York.
April: Williams’s second volume of poetry, Androgyne, Mon Amour, is published.
1977 May 11: Vieux Carré opens on Broadway and closes within two weeks.
1978 Tiger Tail premieres at the Alliance Theater in Atlanta, Georgia, and a revised version premieres the following year at the Hippodrome Theater in Gainsville, Florida.
1979 January 10: A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur opens off-Broadway.
Kirche, Küche, Kinder workshops off-Broadway at the Jean Cocteau Repertory Theater.
Williams is presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Kennedy Center Honors in Washington by President Jimmy Carter.
1980 January 25: Will Mr. Merriwether Return from Memphis? premieres for a limited run at the Tennessee Williams Performing Arts Center in Key West, Florida.
March 26: Williams’s last Broadway play, Clothes for a Summer Hotel, opens and closes after two weeks.
1981 August 24: Something Cloudy, Something Clear premieres off-Broadway at the Jean Cocteau Repertory Theater.
1982 May 8: The final version of A House Not Meant to Stand opens at the Goodman Theater in Chicago.
1983 February 24: Williams is found dead in his room at the Hotel Elysee in New York City. Williams is later buried in St. Louis.
1984 July: Stopped Rocking and Other Screenplays is published.
1985 November: Collected Stories, with an introduction by Gore Vidal, is published.
1995 Lyle Leverich’s biography, Tom: The Unknown Tennessee Williams, is published by Crown Publishers.
1996 September 5: Rose Isabelle Williams dies in Tarrytown, New York.
September 5: The Notebook of Trigorin, in a revised version, opens at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park.
1998 March 5: Not About Nightingales premieres at the Royal National Theatre in London, directed by Trevor Nunn, and opens November 25, 1999, on Broadway.
1999 November: Spring Storm is published.
2000 May: Stairs to the Roof is published.
November: The Selected Letters of Tennessee Williams, Volume I is p
ublished.
2001 June: Fugitive Kind is published.
2002 April: Collected Poems is published.
2004 August: Candles to the Sun is published.
November: The Selected Letters of Tennessee Williams, Volume II is published.
2005 April: Mister Paradise and Other One-Act Plays is published.
2008 April: A House Not Meant to Stand and The Traveling Companion and Other Plays are published.
May 20: (Walter) Dakin Williams dies at the age of 89 in Belleville, Illinois.
2011 April: The Magic Tower and Other One-Act Plays is published.
Orpheus Descending copyright © 1955, 1958 by The University of the South
Suddenly Last Summer copyright © 1958 by The University of the South
“The Past, the Present, and the Perhaps” © 1947 The University of the South
Introductions © 2012 by Martin Sherman
Copyright © 2012 New Directions Publishing Corporation
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CAUTION: Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that Orpheus Descending and Suddenly Last Summer, being fully protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America, the British Commonwealth including the Dominion of Canada, all countries of the Berne Convention, and of all other countries with which the United States has reciprocal copyright relations, are subject to royalty. All rights, including professional, amateur, motion picture, recitation, lecturing, public reading, radio and television broadcasting, video or sound recording, all other forms of mechanical or electronic reproduction, such as CD-ROM, CD-I, information storage and retrieval systems and photocopying, and the rights of translation into foreign languages, are expressly reserved. Particular emphasis is laid on the question of readings, permission for which must be secured from the agent for The University of the South, Casarotto Ramsay & Associates Limited, Waverly House, 7-12 Noel St., London W1F 8GQ, England. Orpheus Descending and Suddenly Last Summer are published by special arrangement with The University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee.
Inquiries concerning the amateur rights for Orpheus Descending or Suddenly Last Summer should be directed to The Dramatists Play Service, 440 Park Avenue South, New York 10016, without whose permission in writing no amateur performance may be given.
Orpheus Descending was first published with Battle of Angels in a cloth edition by New Directions in 1958.
Suddenly Last Summer was first published in a cloth edition by New Directions in 1958.
This combination volume was published as New Directions Paperbook 1247 in 2012.
Published simultaneously in Canada by Penguin Canada Books, Ltd.
ISBN 978-0-8112-2532-8
New Directions Books are published for James Laughlin
by New Directions Publishing Corporation
80 Eighth Avenue, New York, NY 10011
Orpheus Descending and Suddenly Last Summer Page 17