New York City is celebrating Tennessee Williams’s ninety-ninth birthday with numerous special events
Tennessee Williams, who died under questionable circumstances in New York in 1983, would have turned ninety-nine this month. In advance of his centennial, there is a multitude of Williams-related events going on in the city, celebrating the storied career of the award-winning Mississippi-born playwright. The LAByrinth Theater Company is hosting “TENN 99” at the Cherry Lane Theater’s Cherry Pit, three days of nonstop readings, including plays, essays, letters, interviews, even notes on a napkin if Williams wrote on it; among the remarkable all-star participants are Ellen Burstyn, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Sam Rockwell, Michael Stuhlbarg, Eli Wallach, Judith Ivey, Kyra Sedgwick, and dozens more, beginning March 26 at 6:00 and continuing through March 28 at midnight (free). The Target Margin Theater is in the third week of its Unknown Williams festival at the Bushwick Starr, featuring productions of NOW THE CATS WITH JEWELLED CLAWS, THE PRONOUN “I,” GREEN EYES, and THE REMARKABLE ROOMING-HOUSE OF MME. LE MONDE ($12, March 24-28). TMT will follow that with the world premiere of THE REALLY BIG ONCE, about the collaboration between Williams and Elia Kazan, with previews beginning April 13 at the Ontological at St. Marks. Meanwhile, the Roundabout is staging a revival of THE GLASS MENAGERIE at the Laura Pels Theatre, set for a March 24 opening ($70-$80).