Fans of playright Tennessee Williams need look no further than a few miles to find an extravaganza honoring one of Mississippi’s most influential and celebrated residents.
Thomas Lanier Williams was born in Columbus in 1911, and nearly a century later, the city is the site of the Tennessee Williams Tribute celebrating the man’s enormous contributions to American literature and theater.
The festival is the brainchild of Brenda Caradine.
“This has been going on for five years,” Caradine said. “I moved here 11 years ago and found that there was no festival honoring America’s playwright.”
Retired Mississippi State professor Jack White serves as Caradine’s co-chair for the event.
“I’ve always been particularly interested in Williams as a playwright, and we have a wonderful opportunity as this is his birthplace,” White said.
The house where Williams was born, which currently serves as Columbus’ welcome center, will serve as headquarters for the festival. One of the festival’s primary draws will be its performances of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” one of William’s most celebrated works.
Other attractions include lectures and discussions on Williams, receptions, a sermon focusing on “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” and a tour of Victorian homes in the Columbus area.
Not only is the festival’s headquarters the house where Williams was born, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church where Father James Carlyle will deliver his sermon is the church where Williams’ grandfather preached and where Williams himself was baptized.
Speakers for the event include Ruth Moon Kemper, poet and owner of King’s State Press; Milly S. Baranger, alumni distinguished professor of English from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Battle Bell III, adjunct professor of the psychoanalytic program at Tulane University; writer and independent scholar Margaret Bradham Norton Kenneth Holditch, research professor emeritus at the University of New Orleans; and MSU’s James Del Prince, associate professor of retail floristry management, to speak on Williams’ use of flowers in his works.
The festival will run Sept. 1-10. The lectures and discussions are free of charge and open to the public. Performances of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” will start at 8 p.m. daily Sept. 1-7 with a Sunday 2:30 p.m. matinee. Student tickets cost $3. Adult tickets cost $10 and tickets for military, seniors and groups of ten or more cost $8.
For more information on the festival visit the official
Web site at www.columbus-ms.org/documents/TWT06.pdf., or call 1-800-327-2686.