Welcome and opening remarks from conference codirectors Margit Longbrake, the Historic New Orleans Collection, and Bess Rowen, Villanova University

Emerging scholars from the US and France bring fresh perspectives to Williams’s experimental works in discussions of “plastic” acting, the uncanny, and castration as a surprising step toward wholeness in the late plays.

Moderators:

• Bess Rowen, Villanova University
• Matthew P. Smith, Tulane University

Panelists:

• Matthew Minor, City University of New York, Graduate Center
• Jennifer Tsuei, City University of New York, Graduate Center
• Anaïs Umano, Universite de Lorraine

What does queerness in Williams’s texts have to do with 20th-century Tangier, the religion of early America, and a remarkable 21st-century Australian horror film? Join a panel of scholars from the US and Germany as they put a wide range of times, places, and forms in conversation. 

Moderator: Annette J. Saddik, Graduate Center and City Tech, City University of New York

Panelists:

• Stephen Cedars, City University of New York
• Benjamin Gillespie, City University of New York
• Bess Rowen, Villanova University
• Basil Wiesse, Catholic University Eichstätt-Ingolstadt

Break for lunch 

Seasoned director-scholars describe fragmented source texts and perspectives missing from the plays and their productions—and reframe those gaps as directorial opportunities.

Moderator: Mark Charney, Texas Tech University

Panelists:

• Lurana Donnels O’Malley, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
• Tom Mitchell, University of Illinois, Urbana, emeritus
• John “Ray” Proctor, Tulane University

Theater director and educator Tom Mitchell and members of the University of Illinois theater company present a staged reading that interweaves HNOC’s newly acquired letters by Tennessee Williams’s beloved and tragic sister, Rose, with diary entries by his mother and excerpts from his letters and his previously unpublished short story “God in the Free Ward.”

The reading is introduced by HNOC curator and historian Mark Cave and HNOC editor and conference codirector Margit Longbrake, who discuss HNOC’s acquisition of Rose’s letters, and by director Mitchell, who offers insight into his process of combining the texts from various sources.