The essays in this volume were all written by David Kaplan in
conjunction with the Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival,
of which he is the curator and a co-founder. They are organized in two
sections. The first section consists of ten essays written for each year
of the Provincetown Festival, most included in the Festival catalogue
for the year indicated. Those essays focus on each year's thematic
selection of Williams plays and other dance, music, and theater events
as well as some aspect of Williams plays not always obvious in the text
but essential to understanding the plays in production. The second
section includes seven occasional essays, written for productions of
Williams plays associated with the Festival. All the essays relate, in
one way or another, to the story of what happened to the playwright
during the last twenty years of his life and how his reputation is
evolving since his death.

David Kaplan is curator and co-founder of the Provincetown Tennessee
Williams Theater Festival, now in its tenth year. He is the author of
the biography /Tennessee Williams in Provincetown/and editor of the
centennial collection of essays, /Tenn at One Hundred/. He has written
two series of college textbooks: /Five Approaches to Acting/and
/Shakespeare, Shamans, and Show Biz/.

Kaplan has staged Tennessee Williams plays worldwide: /Suddenly, Last
Summer/in Russia in Russian, /Ten Blocks on the Camino Real/in Uruguay
in Spanish, and /The Eccentricities of a Nightingale/in Hong Kong in
Cantonese. In 2008 he directed the world premieres of Williams /The Day
on Which a Man Dies/in Chicago and /The Dog Enchanted by the Divine
View/in Boston. At the New Orleans Tennessee Williams Festival he's
staged Williams /The Traveling Companion/, /The Chalky White Substance/,
and /The Hotel Plays/.