tennessee williams play the glass menagerie

In 1940 Williams' play, Battle of Angels, debuted in Boston. More importantly, it landed him an agent, Audrey Wood, who would become his friend and adviser.

He proved to be a prolific writer and one of his plays earned him $100 from the Group Theater writing contest. When he was 28, Williams moved to New Orleans, where he changed his name (he landed on Tennessee because his father hailed from there) and revamped his lifestyle, soaking up the city life that would inspire his work, most notably the later play, A Streetcar Named Desire. In 1937, returned to college, enrolling at the University of Iowa. Louis and where he connected with several poets studying at Washington University. Eventually, however, the depression took its toll and Williams suffered a nervous breakdown.Īfter recuperating in Memphis, Williams returned to St. The future playwright hated the position, and again he turned to his writing, crafting poems and stories after work. But he was soon withdrawn from the school by his father, who became incensed when he learned that his son's girlfriend was also attending the university.ĭeeply despondent, Williams retreated home, and at his father's urging took a job as a sales clerk with a shoe company. In 1929, Williams enrolled at the University of Missouri to study journalism. His mother became the model for the foolish but strong Amanda Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie, while his father represented the aggressive, driving Big Daddy in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. The family situation, however, did offer fuel for the playwright's art. 'It was just a wrong marriage,' Williams later wrote. Often strained, the Williams home could be a tense place to live. His parent's marriage certainly didn't help. The carefree nature of his boyhood was stripped in his new urban home, and as a result, Williams turned inward and started to write. But life changed for him when his family moved to St. Williams described his childhood in Mississippi as pleasant and happy. Raised predominantly by his mother, Williams had a complicated relationship with his father, a demanding salesman who preferred work instead of parenting. Williams was born Thomas Lanier Williams on March 26, 1911, in Columbus, Mississippi, the second of Cornelius and Edwina Williams' three children. Many of Williams' plays have been adapted to film starring screen greats like Marlon Brando and Elizabeth Taylor.

On March 31, 1945, his play, The Glass Menagerie, opened on Broadway and two years later A Streetcar Named Desire earned Williams his first Pulitzer Prize. After college, Tennessee Williams moved to New Orleans, a city that would inspire much of his writing.

Tennessee williams play the glass menagerie