Tennessee Williams Festival set Oct. 15-16, 2010

Coahoma Community College hosts 18th annual celebration;

to be publicized at London production of ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’

CLARKSDALE – The internationally-acclaimed Mississippi Delta Tennessee Williams Festival has been scheduled at Coahoma Community College on Friday, Oct. 15 – Saturday, Oct. 16, 2010, according to Dr. Vivian Presley, CCC president.

Featuring porch plays and live drama starring Broadway stars, regional professionals and fledgling student actors, a literary conference with America’s top scholars, music, receptions and Southern cuisine in the childhood neighborhood of Brick, Blanche, and Baby Doll, the festival is a hometown celebration that has attracted critical acclaim.

Awarded the Mississippi Humanities Council’s prestigious Partner Award for excellence and community collaborations in February 2009, the festival was recorded for a BBC documentary titled, “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” that aired in September 2009 for an audience of 13 million listeners in the UK.

Although Tennessee Willilams died in 1983, the popularity of his works continues globally and especially in the UK, according to BBC producer Carmel Lonergan speaking at the October 2009 Clarksdale festival.

Opening in January in London’s Novello Theatre is the celebrated Broadway production of “Cat” starring James Earl Jones, a native Mississippian, and Phylicia Rashad with programs expected to publicize Clarksdale’s 2010 festival.

Clarksdale has become a magnet for theatre professionals preparing for Tennessee Williams productions as far back as actress Barbara Bel Geddes arriving decades ago with legendary director Elia Kazan prior to her Broadway debut as “Maggie” in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.”

In the early 1990s, French actors came to soak up Southern lore and guitar instruction before their production of “Orpheus Descending,” and an International Tennessee Williams Conference at the University of Nantes.

Traveling from London this summer before her role as Stella in the West End production of “A Streetcar Named Desire,” Golden Globe nominee Ruth Wilson, called her visit “invaluable” for her performance with Oscar winner Rachel Weisz as Blanche DuBois.

So did British actress Frances O’Conner who learned how “to speak Southern” several years ago in Coahoma County plantation homes before she earned standing ovations as Maggie.

“This visit to Clarksdale has been invaluable; for me as an actor it is very important to fill my body and mind with sense memories,” says Wilson whose 2008 performance in the Masterpiece Theatre television series,” Jane Eyre,” earned her four Best Actress nominations.

Among the sites she viewed were St. George’s Episcopal Church and former rectory, the Cutrer Mansion and Clarksdale’s historic district where he spent his childhood, the Stovall and Anderson plantations, Uncle Henry’s Place on Moon Lake, and miles of green Mississippi River levees, farmland, and cypress brakes.

“So on stage when I talk about Belle Reve (Clarksdale’s Cutrer Mansion is generally regarded as the ancestral home of Stella and Blanche in ‘Streetcar,’) or Moon Lake, I have an immediate and natural reaction to those places, those people,” she continues.

“It is a way for me to immerse myself in the world of the play; I can literally hear, smell, feel, and see those places, those people,” she says.

For the past several years Broadway actress Tammy Grimes, winner of two Tony Awards and a member of the American Theatre Hall of Fame, has performed at the Clarksdale festival with actor/director Joel Vig, a member of the original cast of “Hairspray.”

Miss Grimes appeared in Vanessa Redgrave’s New York production of the Tennessee’s “Orpheus Descending,” and has forged solid friendships with Clarksdale residents.

Other festival regulars include Oxford actor Johnny McPhail, star of Sundance Film Festival winner, “Ballast,” and theatre veteran Erma Duricko, founder of Blues Roses Productions, who directs the Student Drama Competition.

In 2010 the African-American production of “Cat” in London will share connections with Clarksdale’s Williams Festival, since it is produced by one of America’s Historic Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU).

Featured uring the first festival in 1993 was Emmy Award winner Ruby Dee, who portrayed Amanda Wingfield from Tennessee Williams’ drama, “The Glass Menagerie.”

Hundreds of African-American students have competed annually in the festival’s Student Acting Competition that awards $3,000 in cash prizes for winners in monologues and scenes.

In 1995 Clarksdale’s festival was selected by the U.S. Postal Service to host the unveiling of the Tennessee Williams postage stamp and also the authorized biography of the playwright by writer Lyle Leverich.

In November Vicksburg’s retired chancery clerk requested a special tour of Williams sites for "Twin Peaks" television series star Catherine Coulson in preparation for her role as Big Mama in the "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," production at Oregon's Shakespeare Festival in January.

Clarksdale’s festival organizers coordinate activities each spring with the Delta Literary Tour sponsored by the University of Mississippi’s Center for the Study of Southern Culture, and are part of the Southern Literary Trail through Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi.

Hosted by CCC with additional funding from the Mississippi Arts Commission, the Mississippi Humanities Council, the Rock River Foundation, local businesses and donors, the festival is free and open to the public. Reservations are required for meals.

The literary conference opens in CCC’s Whiteside Lecture Hall, and the Student Drama Competition is held in the Georgia Lewis Theatre. Live drama is presented at Oakhurst Middle School, Clarksdale’s historic district, and Clarksdale Station, the renovated passenger depot.