Tennessee Williams Annual Review 2026
Number 24
Founded in 1998, the Tennessee Williams Annual Review remains the only journal devoted to the works, worldwide influence, and cultural context of one of the most pivotal playwrights of the 20th century. Many issues showcase a previously unpublished work by Williams.
In this issue
“[T]here’s going to be a brand new breed of artists, bred in the open, on the fields of battle, a kind that will have cut their teeth on bullets. [. . .] What’ll they have to say ten years from now, or twenty years, or fifty years from now, Bunny, with the world made over or wrecked or even with things in the same state they’re in now?”
—from “Fin du Monde (A Postscript to the Casualty List),” by Tennessee Williams
In the months following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Tennessee Williams penned a poignant short story he titled “Fin du Monde”—the end of the world—in which a gay couple muses on World War II’s impending effects on their lives. Forty years later, the playwright’s world was still ending: In 1981, he typed a note describing “what may well be my last play”—“The Lingering Hour,” about an aging playwright watching volcanoes destroy the earth. Inside the 2026 issue: “Fin du Monde” appears in print for the first time, as does a column Williams wrote about the Irish playwright Brendan Behan. An archival journey of discovery introduces readers to “The Lingering Hour,” one of Williams’s last and least-known plays. Essays explore piracy, Soviet criticism, Williams’s financial struggles as a young writer, recent stage productions, and new books.
Cover image: Paul Mescal and Patsy Ferran in A Streetcar Named Desire (Brooklyn Academy of Music, 2025; detail). Photo by Julieta Cervantes.
Tennessee Williams Annual Review 2026
HNOC 2026
softcover • 6" × 9" • 230 pp.
3 color images
ISSN 1097-6035
ISBN 978-0-917860-96-6
$15.00
Table of Contents
Front Matter
Editor’s Note
“Fin du Monde (A Postscript to the Casualty List)”: Tennessee Williams’s Bohemian Circle and World War II
The author introduces the first-time publication of “Fin du Monde (A Postscript to the Casualty List),” a short story written by Williams not long after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. In the story, a gay couple in the French Quarter muses on how the United States’ entry into World War II stands to change the lives of artists and outsiders forever. The essay provides additional historical context for the story and insight into Williams’s circle and way of life in the years before and during the war.
Fin du Monde (A Postscript to the Casualty List)
First-time publication of a short story written by Tennessee Williams in the early 1940s featuring the poet (and decorator’s assistant) Artemis “Bunny” Bonheur, his partner Clemence (a young composer), and their neighbor Hilda at home in the French Quarter in New Orleans. On the day the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor makes headlines, Bunny and Clemence discuss the ways the US entry into World War II stands to change the salons they host, their lives, and the lives of artists and marginalized people throughout the nation. Available in print edition only.
Introduction to “Tennessee’s Column”: Williams on the Playwright Brendan Behan
The author introduces the first-time publication of an undated one-page draft typescript entitled “Tennessee’s Column,” in which Williams reacts to the 1960 Broadway opening of The Hostage by the Irish playwright Brendan Behan (author of The Quare Fellow, staged in London in 1956). The essay provides relevant details about Behan’s life, work, and role in Williams’s life and situates the draft in the context of Williams’s concerns about his own career as he prepared for his play Period of Adjustment to open on Broadway.
Tennessee’s Column
The first-time publication of an undated one-page draft typescript entitled “Tennessee’s Column,” in which Williams reacts to the 1960 Broadway opening of The Hostage by the Irish playwright Brendan Behan. Likely written shortly before the opening of Williams’s play Period of Adjustment, the column includes references to Brigitte Bardot and a risqué joke omitted from the original version of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof amid Williams’s reflections on current theater and on his own particular moment in his career. Available in print edition only.
Tennessee Williams in Soviet Criticism: A Cold War–Era Reversal of Fortune
An Introduction to “The Lingering Hour,” the Play Williams Declared Might Be His Last
Pirate Imagery and Outlaw Masculinity in Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie
“Clawing and Scratching”: Tennessee Williams’s Finances from 1939 through 1944
A Streetcar Named Desire, directed by Rebecca Frecknall
Review of A Streetcar Named Desire. Written by Tennessee Williams, directed by Rebecca Frecknall, Almeida Theatre Production, 16 March 2025, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Brooklyn, New York.
The Notebook of Trigorin, directed by Jim Niesen
Review of The Notebook of Trigorin. Written by Tennessee Williams, adapted from Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull, directed by Jim Niesen, Irondale Ensemble Project, 11 April 2025, Space at Irondale, Brooklyn, New York.
Suddenly Last Summer, directed by Brenna Geffers
Review of Suddenly Last Summer. Written by Tennessee Williams, directed by Brenna Geffers, Die-Cast Productions, 27 September 2024, Unitarian Universalist Meeting House, Provincetown, Massachusetts.
In the Room Where He Waits, directed by Timothy Despina Marshall
Review of In the Room Where He Waits. Directed by Timothy Despina Marshall, written by Marshall and Dimple Rajyaguru, B&T Films / Orange Entertainment, 2024.
Early Stories by Tennessee Williams, edited by Tom Mitchell
Review of Early Stories by Tennessee Williams. Edited by Tom Mitchell. University of Iowa Press, 2025.
The Metatheater of Tennessee Williams: Tracing the Artistic Process through Seven Plays, by Laura Michiels
Review of The Metatheater of Tennessee Williams: Tracing the Artistic Process through Seven Plays. By Laura Michiels. McFarland, 2021.
Tennessee Williams’s America: Homes, Families, Exiles, by Ahmed Honeini
Review of Tennessee Williams’s America: Homes, Families, Exiles. By Ahmed Honeini. Routledge, 2025.
Postmodernism in Arthur Miller’s Long-Late Period, by Ciarán Leinster
Review of Postmodernism in Arthur Miller’s Long-Late Period. By Ciarán Leinster. Brill, 2025.
Notes on Contributors
Contributors
Susan C. W. Abbotson
James Armstrong
Ellen F. Brown
Stephen Cedars
Benjamin Gillespie
Emmeline Gros
Maxim M. Gudkov
Jef Hall-Flavin
Robert L. Hampel
Michael S. D. Hooper
David Kaplan
Tom Mitchell
Bess Rowen
Annette J. Saddik
Tennessee Williams Studies
HNOC is one of four main repositories of the playwright’s work. We produce an annual scholarly journal and conference devoted to Williams, among other research tools, articles, and exhibitions.
About TWAR
Although submissions are welcomed at any point, August 15 serves as the deadline for those wishing to have work published in March of the following year.
The Tennessee Williams Annual Review invites academic writing on all aspects of the Williams oeuvre, including his plays, poetry, prose, and correspondence. Studies of the productions of his plays and technical analyses of stagecraft and institutional issues are also welcome. Founded in 1998, the journal routinely publishes brief texts that emerge from the ongoing examination of Williams’s literary records (usually draft versions of plays). Of particular interest is the history of the reception of Williams’s work—and the public persona cultivated by the author—in the postwar Broadway renaissance and in the period roughly from 1940 to 1980, in the US and abroad. Also of interest are the lasting effects of Williams’s work on the cinema of the 1950s and after. The editors are also eager to consider work devoted to present-day productions of recently discovered and newly edited texts.
In addition to work that focuses primarily on Williams, the journal is interested in studies of his contemporaries—of playwrights and other creative personnel as well—and of relevant issues (e.g., the queer history of the period). Especially welcome is scholarship that draws on archival sources and helps illuminate the material history of Williams’s literary output, as well as the culture his work and public persona both reflected and shaped.
Specifications
All submissions should be 4,500 to 9,000 words long, including notes but not including works cited, and should follow the most recent MLA guidelines.
Please prepare submissions in a recent version of Microsoft Word and send them as email attachments to Margit Longbrake, managing editor (Margit.Longbrake@hnoc.org).
Author anonymity: Authors should redact their names from their essays before submission, and notes or references to the author’s previous work should be in the third person. The journal will make every effort to respect the privacy of reviewers and readers of manuscripts submitted for review.
All quotations, sources, and images should be fully cited in such a way that the original source can be located. Authors must fully cite in the manuscript, at submission, their use of all content (whether text, images, data, or other) created by an AI tool. All submissions must carry assurance that they have been submitted exclusively to the Tennessee Williams Annual Review.
Permission to use any copyrighted, third-party material will need to be obtained before the contribution is published. Authors will be required to sign a license granting the Tennessee Williams Annual Review the right to publish. The license will ask authors to warrant that they are the original and sole authors of the work and that no material has been plagiarized from other sources.
Editor
Annette J. Saddik, City University of New York
Managing Editor
Margit Longbrake, Historic New Orleans Collection and Williams Research Center
Founding and Consulting Editor
Robert Bray, Middle Tennessee State University (emeritus)
Editorial Board
John S. Bak, Université de Lorraine
Ramón Espejo Romero, Universidad de Sevilla
Tison Pugh, University of Central Florida
Matthew C. Roudané, Georgia State University
David Savran, Graduate Center, City University of New York
Past editorial board members
Thomas P. Adler, Purdue University
George W. Crandell, Auburn University
Jessica Dorman, Historic New Orleans Collection and Williams Research Center
Allean Hale, University of Illinois, Urbana
Philip C. Kolin, University of Southern Mississippi
R. Barton Palmer, Clemson University (emeritus)
Nancy M. Tischler, Pennsylvania State University
PUBLISHER
The Tennessee Williams Annual Review (ISSN 1097-6035) is published annually by the Historic New Orleans Collection and Williams Research Center.
Tennessee Williams Annual Review
Historic New Orleans Collection
522 Royal Street
New Orleans, Louisiana 70130
Online versions of issues 1 through 17 (1998 through 2018) can be accessed in our archives. Print copies of many back issues can be purchased from the Shop at the Historic New Orleans Collection.
STATEMENT OF PUBLICATION ETHICS
Guiding principles
Initially published in 1998 by Middle Tennessee State University and published since 2005 by the Historic New Orleans Collection, the Tennessee Williams Annual Review is committed to presenting high-quality peer-reviewed scholarship and to the responsible publication of valuable original work uncovered in the ongoing process of examining Tennessee Williams’s literary papers. The Review’s processes are guided by ethical best practices for academic journals of arts and literature.
Process
Scholarly essays submitted to the journal for consideration are evaluated first by the editor. Those deemed to have potential for the journal undergo a double-blind peer-evaluation process at the end of which a decision is made by editorial board vote. Manuscripts submitted or invited for the journal’s Previously Unpublished section and other special features where anonymity is not possible are evaluated according to the rigorous standards applied to blind submissions.
Professional conduct
The journal makes every effort to respect the privacy of authors and readers of manuscripts. Editors, reviewers, and authors are expected to communicate and conduct themselves respectfully and professionally. Discrimination, intimidation, or harassment of any kind is unacceptable.
Plagiarism
The journal is strictly against unethical copying or plagiarism in any form. Prior to publication, authors will be asked to sign an agreement warranting that they are the original and sole authors of the work; that no material has been plagiarized from other sources; and that permission to use any copyrighted third-party material has been or will be obtained before the contribution is published.
Author responsibilities
Originality
Authors should submit only original, unpublished work. Any content derived from previous publications, including previously published work by the author, should be accompanied by the relevant citation. Authors must fully cite in the manuscript, at submission, their use of all content (whether text, images, data, or other) created by an AI tool.
Author anonymity
Authors of essays submitted for consideration should redact their names from the document before submission, and notes or references to the author’s previous work should be in the third person.
Integrity and intellectual property
Authors must guarantee that their submitted work contains no libelous material or content that infringes on the copyright of another party. All quotations, sources, and images should be fully cited in such a way that the original source can be identified. All submissions must carry assurance that they have been submitted exclusively to The Tennessee Williams Annual Review.
Editor and reviewer responsibilities
Confidentiality
All manuscripts received for review are confidential documents; they must not be circulated or discussed outside the journal's editorial team except if authorized by the editor. Unpublished original material in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor’s or reviewer’s own research without the written consent of the author. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential.
Standards of objectivity
Reviews should be conducted objectively and observations formulated clearly with supporting evidence. Personal criticism of the authors is inappropriate.
Acknowledgment of sources
Reviewers are asked to identify relevant published work not cited in the submission. Reviewers should also identify any substantial similarity between the submission and any other published or unpublished work they may know about.
Conflict of interest
Any reviewer who sees a possible conflict of interest arising from their relation to the author or to the research described in the manuscript should notify the editor, so that the potential conflict may be discussed and an alternative reviewer chosen if needed.
Publisher responsibilities
Handling of unethical publishing behavior
In cases of alleged or proven research misconduct, fraudulent publication, or plagiarism, the publisher will confer with the editor and will take appropriate measures to clarify the situation and determine what action may be necessary. Steps may include the publication of an erratum or the retraction of the work. The publisher, together with the editors, shall take reasonable measures to prevent the journal from publishing work in which research misconduct has occurred. Neither the editors nor the publisher shall encourage or knowingly allow such misconduct to take place.
Access to journal content
The publisher is committed to the permanent availability and preservation of scholarly research and ensures accessibility by partnering with organizations and maintaining its own digital archive.
Author fees
Authors are not charged any submission, processing, or publication fees by the publisher.
COPYRIGHT AND LICENSING
Authors retain the copyright to their published work. Authors will be required to sign a license granting the journal the right to publish, a right that is exclusive for one year after publication. Thereafter the right becomes nonexclusive, and authors may publish the work at their discretion, provided that the Tennessee Williams Annual Review be cited as the first publisher. The license will ask authors to warrant that they are the original and sole authors of the work; that no material has been plagiarized from other sources; and that permission to use any copyrighted, third-party material has been or will be obtained before the contribution is published.
Thomas P. Adler, Purdue University
Mauricio D. Aguilera Linde, University of Granada
Shelley Akers, Independent scholar
Gabe C. Alfieri, Salve Regina University
Alicia Andrzejewski, Graduate Center, City University of New York
José I. Badenes, Loyola Marymount University
John S. Bak, Université de Lorraine
Mark Bernard, Carson-Newman College
Larry Blades, Independent scholar
Darrell Bourque, University of Louisiana, Lafayette
Will Brantley, Middle Tennessee State University
Robert Bray, Middle Tennessee State University
Mary F. Brewer, Loughborough University
Juanita Cabello, Independent scholar
Bert Cardullo
Virginia Spencer Carr, Georgia State University
Claudia Wilsch Case, Lehman University
Mark Cave, Historic New Orleans Collection
Stephen Cedars, Graduate Center, City University of New York
Daniel Ciba, Ramapo College
Bernadette Clemens, Case Western Reserve University
Craig Clinton, Reed College
Ruby Cohn, University of California, Davis
Christopher Conlon, Writer and independent scholar
George W. Crandell, Auburn University
David A. Davis, Mercer University
Rose De Angelis, Marist College
Gilbert Debusscher, University of Brussels
Albert J. Devlin, University of Missouri
Carlos Dews, University of West Florida, Pensacola
Matt DiCintio, Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities
Marianne DiQuattro, Rollins College
Linda Dorff, University of Houston
Barbara Ewell, Loyola University, New Orleans
Joe Falocco, Catawba College
Adriana Falqueto Lemos, Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo
James Francis, Texas A&M University
Michael D. Freese, American University of Central Asia
Raymond-Jean Frontain, University of Central Arkansas
Tiffany Gilbert, University of North Carolina, Wilmington
Dirk Gindt, Stockholm University
Charles A. Goldthwaite, Jr., Writer and independent scholar
Jess Gregg, Writer
Robert J. Grosch
Maxim M. Gudkov, St. Petersburg State University
Allean Hale, University of Illinois, Urbana
John Haman, University of the South
Gary Harrington, Salisbury University
Michael Hooper, Independent scholar
Christina Hunter, University of Southern Mississippi
David Kaplan, Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival
Thomas Keith, New Directions Publishing
Philip C. Kolin, University of Southern Mississippi
Jean Kontaxopoulos, Conseil de l’Union européenne
Richard E. Kramer, Writer and independent scholar
Colby Kullman, University of Mississippi
Ciarán Leinster, University College Dublin A&LL Centre
David Leopold, Al Hirschfeld Foundation
Lindy Levin, Center for the Study of Women, University of California, Los Angeles
Margit Longbrake, Historic New Orleans Collection
Jeffrey B. Loomis, Northwest Missouri State University
Deborah Martinson, Occidental College
Sophie Maruéjouls-Koch, Université de Toulouse II–Le Mirail
Michele Meek, Bridgewater State University
Tom Mitchell, University of Illinois, Urbana
Irene Morra, University of Toronto
Clay Morton, Macon State College
Nick Moschovakis, Writer and independent scholar
Brenda Murphy, University of Connecticut
Barbara Neri, Writer and independent scholar
Claire Nicolay, Loyola University, Chicago
Jacqueline O’Connor, Boise State University
Michael C. O’Neill, Lafayette College
Michael Paller, American Conservatory Theatre, San Francisco
R. Barton Palmer, Clemson University
Brian Parker, University of Toronto
Brian M. Peters, Champlain College, Saint-Lambert
Alexander Pettit, University of North Texas
Tison Pugh, University of Central Florida
Stefanie Quinlan, Independent scholar
David Radavich, Eastern Illinois University
Naghmeh Rezaie, University of Delaware
Matthew C. Roudané, Georgia State University
John Rowell, Columbia College
Bess Rowen, Villanova University
Annette J. Saddik, Graduate Center and City Tech, City University of New York
Takashi Sakai, Fukuoka University
M. Tyler Sasser, University of Alabama
David Savran, Graduate Center, City University of New York
Michael R. Schiavi, New York Institute of Technology, Manhattan
James Schlatter, University of Pennsylvania
Henry I. Schvey, Washington University, St. Louis
Dean Shackelford, Southeast Missouri State University
Dorothy Shapiro
Emerson José Simões da Silva, Instituto Federal de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia do Sul de Minas
Lori Leathers Single, Georgia State University
Neil Sinyard, University of Hull
John Sykes, Wingate University
Nancy M. Tischler, Pennsylvania State University
Julie Vatain-Corfdir, Sorbonne Université
Ralph F. Voss, University of Alabama
Alison Walls, Graduate Center, City University of New York
Edwina Dakin Williams
Tennessee Williams
Harvey Young, Northwestern University
Laura Torres Zúñiga, Catholic University, Murcia