"I shall write today all day in an effort to forget the nervousness which has come on me during the night. Perhaps it is a good thing because for days, even weeks, I’ve been horribly idle, doing practically nothing. Now I feel a new story working itself out. . . ."

                        —Tennessee Williams, notebook entry, July 30, 1936

In 1936, a 26-year-old virgin named Tom Williams began a story that emerged in 1943 as a worldly tale by “Tennessee”—but that then vanished. Discovered 80 years later, “The Lost Girl” makes its print debut in the 2023 issue of the Tennessee Williams Annual Review. Essays link the exciting find to milestones in Williams’s life, use filth and silent action as interpretive lenses on his plays, and reevaluate the first onstage interpretation of Blanche DuBois in Japan. Reviews investigate provocative new stage productions, feature photographs from a groundbreaking reimagining of A Streetcar Named Desire at Paris’s famed Comédie-Française, and introduce a collection of stories recently unearthed from the Williams archives.

Founded in 1998, the Tennessee Williams Annual Review remains the only journal devoted to Williams’s works, influence, and cultural context. Many issues showcase a previously unpublished work by Williams. Submission guidelines and back issues are available at tennesseewilliamsstudies.org.

Cover image: Françoise Gillard as Stella in Un tramway nommé Désir (Paris, 2011). Photo by Cosimo Mirco Magliocca.

Contents

“Editor’s Note”
R. Barton Palmer

“Introduction to ‘The Lost Girl’”
Tom Mitchell

Previously Unpublished:
“The Lost Girl,” by Tennessee Williams
edited by Tom Mitchell

“The Jungle and the Unwashed Grape: Utopic Potential of the Filthy City in the Work of Tennessee Williams and Charles Ludlam”
Stephen Cedars

“Shimpa, Onnagata, and Kata: Haruko Sugimura’s Gender Performance in the Japanese Premiere of A Streetcar Named Desire”
Takashi Sakai

“Dumbshow on the Verandah: Silent Action in the Plays of Tennessee Williams”
John Haman

Theater Review: Un tramway nommé Désir, directed by Lee Breuer
David Kaplan

Theater Review: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, directed by Mitchell Polonsky and Chloe Claudel, and Bananas Burlesque, directed by Lefty Lucy
Bess Rowen

Book Review: “The Caterpillar Dogs” and Other Early Stories, by Tennessee Williams
Bess Rowen