I've Covered the Waterfront

Tennessee Williams’ scholars discuss the playwright’s sexuality and how this may have impacted representations of sex and gender in his work. This discussion will critically consider Williams’ daring and repression in these representations. Guests include Thomas Keith, Annette J. Saddik and David Savran. Hosted by Joe E. Jeffreys.

Thomas Keith edits Tennessee Williams for New Directions Publishing where he has been involved in the preparation and editing of over twenty Williams plays, the collected poetry, essays, and three collections of one-acts. Keith is the scholarly editor for the late full-length A House Not Meant to Stand, and the upcoming volume, The Magic Tower and Other One-Act Plays. He serves as an advisor to the Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival and The Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival.

Annette J. Saddik is an Associate Professor in the English Department at New York City College of Technology (CUNY), and also teaches in the Ph.D. Program in Theatre at the CUNY Graduate Center, specializing in twentieth-century drama and performance, particularly the work of Tennessee Williams. She is the author of Contemporary American Drama (2007) and The Politics of Reputation: The Critical Reception of Tennessee Williams’ Later Plays (1999), and has edited and introduced a collection of Williams’ previously unpublished later plays, The Traveling Companion and Other Plays (2008). In addition, Dr. Saddik has published essays on Williams as well as on David Mamet, Sam Shepard, and Antonin Artaud in various journals and anthologies, and serves on the editorial boards of Theatre Topics and The Tennessee Williams Annual Review.

David Savran is a specialist in twentieth and twenty-first century U.S. theatre, popular culture, and social theory. He is the author of eight books, most recently, Highbrow/Lowdown: Theater, Jazz, and the Making of the New Middle Class, the winner of the Joe A. Callaway Prize for the Best Book on Drama or Theatre published in 2008-09. He has, in addition, published two collections of interviews with playwrights and has served as a judge for the Obie Awards and the Lucille Lortel Awards. He is co-editor of the Journal of American Drama and Theatre and is the Vera Mowry Roberts Distinguished Professor of Theatre at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

Joe E. Jeffreys teaches dramatic literature and theatre history at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts Department of Drama and has also taught at Stony Brook University, Purchase and Lehman College. He has published in encyclopedias, periodicals including The Village Voice, Time Out and Out and journals including The Drama Review, Theatre History Studies and Women and Performance. He produces Drag Show Video Verite and his video shorts have screened worldwide. Jeffreys is the dramaturge for the Broadway bound premiere of William’s last full-length play In Masks Outrageous and Austere.

Produced in conjunction with the New York City premiere of Tennessee Williams’ Green Eyes (at the Hudson Hotel, 356 W 58th St., January 5- January 23), The Kindness of Strangeness: Reframing Tennessee Williams @ 100 is a month-long series of companion programs inaugurating the centenary celebrations of Williams’ birth. Through public discussions, talkbacks, and film screenings, these programs reclaim Tennessee Williams as a pivotal member of the avant-garde and queer movements. Three keynote public conversations take place at the Museum of Arts and Design: I Remember Tenn (January 8), Tennessee Williams and the Avant Garde (January 15), and I’ve Covered the Waterfront: Tennessee Williams’ Queer Representations of Sex and Gender (January 22). Post show talk backs and additional programming will take place at the Hudson Hotel and other locations around New York City.