Original Broadway production
The original Broadway production was produced by Irene Mayer Selznick and directed by Elia Kazan.[3] It opened at the Shubert Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut in early November 1947, then played the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia before moving to the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on December 3, 1947.[3] Selznick originally wanted to cast Margaret Sullavan and John Garfield, but settled on the less well-known Jessica Tandy and a virtual unknown at the time, Marlon Brando. The opening night cast also included Kim Hunter as Stella and Karl Malden as Mitch.[3] Tandy was cast after Williams saw her performance in a West Coast production of his one-act play Portrait of a Madonna. Williams believed that casting Brando, who was young for the part as it was originally conceived, would evolve Kowalski from being a vicious older man to someone whose unintentional cruelty can be attributed to youthful ignorance. Despite its shocking scenes and gritty dialogue, the audience applauded the debut performance.[5] Brooks Atkinson, reviewing the opening in The New York Times, described Tandy's "superb performance" as "almost incredibly true", concluding that Williams "has spun a poignant and luminous story".[6]
Later in the run, Uta Hagen succeeded Tandy, Carmelita Pope succeeded Hunter, and Anthony Quinn succeeded Brando. Hagen and Quinn took the show on a national tour directed by Harold Clurman, and then returned to Broadway for additional performances. Ralph Meeker also took on the part of Stanley both in the Broadway and touring companies. Tandy received a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play in 1948, sharing the honor with Judith Anderson and Katharine Cornell. The original Broadway production closed, after 855 performances, in 1949.
Original cast
- Jessica Tandy as Blanche DuBois
- Karl Malden as Harold "Mitch" Mitchell
- Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski
- Kim Hunter as Stella Kowalski
- Rudy Bond as Steve Hubbell
- Nick Dennis as Pablo Gonzales
- Peg Hillias as Eunice Hubbell
- Vito Christi as Young Collector
- Richard Garrick as Doctor
- Ann Dere as Nurse (later called the Matron)
- Gee Gee James as Negro Woman
- Edna Thomas as Mexican Woman
Other early productions
The first adaptation of Streetcar in Greece was performed in 1948 by Koun's Art Theater, two years before its film adaptation and one year before its London premiere, directed by Karolos Koun starring Melina Mercouri as Blanche and Vasilis Diamantopoulos as Stanley, with original music by Manos Hadjidakis.
The London production, directed by Laurence Olivier, opened at the Aldwych Theatre on October 12, 1949. It starred Bonar Colleano as Stanley, Vivien Leigh as Blanche, Renée Asherson as Stella and Bernard Braden as Mitch.[7]
An Australian production with Viola Keats as Blanche and Arthur Franz as Stanley opened at the Comedy Theatre in Melbourne in February 1950.[8]
Revivals
The first all-black production of Streetcar was likely performed by the Summer Theatre Company at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri, in August 1953 and directed by one of Williams's former classmates at Iowa, Thomas D. Pawley, as noted in the Streetcar edition of the "Plays in Production" series published by Cambridge University Press. The black and cross-gendered productions of Streetcar since the mid-1950s are too numerous to list here.
Tallulah Bankhead, for whom Williams originally had written the role of Blanche, starred in a 1956 New York City Center Company production directed by Herbert Machiz.[9]
In 1972, American composer Frances Ziffer set A Streetcar Named Desire to music.[10]
The first Broadway revival of the play was in 1973. It was produced by the Lincoln Center, at the Vivian Beaumont Theater, and starred Rosemary Harris as Blanche, James Farentino as Stanley and Patricia Conolly as Stella.[11]
in 1976, Rip Torn enlisted director Jack Gelber to helm a revival at the once celebrated Academy Festival Theatre in Lake Forest, Illinois[12] starring himself as Stanley and his wife Geraldine Page as Blanche. The production was threateningly realistic, projecting a brightly lit, garbage-filled stage reflecting a hostile, predatory world and immersing the audience in a total theatre experience. Gelber's Streetcar was troubling for the critics because it was raw, even dangerous. It pushed the Streetcar script to the farthest reaches of urban violence and unabated naturalism. One review said "This is not the Blanche of butterfly wings. This is gossamer with guts." Page's performance was described as displaying little of Leigh's hysteria or Tandy's forlorn helplessness.[13]
The spring 1988 revival at the Circle in the Square Theatre starred Aidan Quinn opposite Blythe Danner as Blanche and Frances McDormand as Stella.[14]
A highly publicized and acclaimed revival in 1992 starred Alec Baldwin as Stanley and Jessica Lange as Blanche. It was staged at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, where the original production was staged. This production proved so successful that it was filmed for television. It featured Timothy Carhart as Mitch and Amy Madigan as Stella, as well as future Sopranos stars James Gandolfini and Aida Turturro. Gandolfini was Carhart's understudy.[15]
In 1997, Le Petit Theatre du Vieux Carré in New Orleans mounted a 50th Anniversary production, with music by the Marsalis family, starring Michael Arata and Shelly Poncy. In 2009, the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia, where the original pre-Broadway tryout was held, staged a production of the play.
In 1997, at Steppenwolf Theatre, Chicago IL, Gary Sinise as Stanley, John C Reilly as Mitch, Kathryn Erbe as Stella, and Laila Robins as Blanche.
Glenn Close starred in Trevor Nunn's 2002 production for the National Theatre at the Lyttleton Theatre, London.
The 2005 Broadway revival was directed by Edward Hall and produced by The Roundabout Theater Company. It starred John C. Reilly as Stanley, Amy Ryan as Stella, and Natasha Richardson as Blanche.[16] The production was Richardson's final appearance on Broadway; she died in 2009 following a skiing accident.
Bette Bourne and Paul Shaw of the British gay theater company Bloolips, and Peggy Shaw and Lois Weaver of the American lesbian theater company Split Britches, collaborated and performed a gender-bent adaptation titled Belle Reprieve. Blanche was played as "man in a dress", Stanley as a "butch lesbian", Mitch as a "fairy disguised as a man", and Stella as a "woman disguised as a woman".[17]
The Sydney Theatre Company production of A Streetcar Named Desire premiered on September 5 and ran until October 17, 2009. This production, directed by Liv Ullmann, starred Cate Blanchett as Blanche, Joel Edgerton as Stanley, Robin McLeavy as Stella and Tim Richards as Mitch.[18]
From July 2009 until October 2009, Rachel Weisz and Ruth Wilson starred in a highly acclaimed revival of the play in London's West End at the Donmar Warehouse directed by Rob Ashford.
In April 2012, Blair Underwood, Nicole Ari Parker, Daphne Rubin-Vega and Wood Harris starred in a multiracial adaptation at the Broadhurst Theatre.[19] Theatre review aggregator Curtain Critic gave the production a score of 61 out of 100 based on the opinions of 17 critics.[20]
A production at the Young Vic, London, opened on July 23, 2014, and closed on September 19, 2014. Directed by Benedict Andrews and starring Gillian Anderson, Ben Foster, Vanessa Kirby and Corey Johnson; this production garnered critical acclaim and is the fastest-selling show produced by the Young Vic.[21] On September 16, 2014, the performance was relayed live to over one thousand cinemas in the UK as part of the National Theatre Live project.[22] Thus far, the production has been screened in over 2000 venues.[23] From April 23, 2016, until June 4, 2016, the production was reprised at the new St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn, New York City.[24] In 2020 during the COVID-19 lockdowns, it was released for free on YouTube as part of the National Theatre At Home series.[25]
In 2016 Sarah Frankcom directed a production at the Royal Exchange in Manchester starring Maxine Peake, Ben Batt, Sharon Duncan Brewster and Youssef Kerkour. It opened on 8 September and closed on 15 October. It was well-received, and Peake's performance in particular received praise.[26]
In 2018, it headlined the third annual Tennessee Williams Festival St. Louis at the Grandel Theatre. Carrie Houk, the Festival's Executive Artistic Director, and Tim Ocel, the director of the play, chose to cast the play with actors whose ages were close to Tennessee Williams' original intentions. (The birthday party is for Blanche's 30th birthday.) Sophia Brown starred as Blanche, with Nick Narcisi as Stanley, Lana Dvorak as Stella, and Spencer Sickmann as Mitch. Henry Polkes composed the original score, and James Wolk designed the set. The critics were unanimous in their praise.[27][28]
The play was revived again in 2022 at London's Almeida Theatre under the direction of Rebecca Frecknall, with Patsy Ferran taking the role of Blanche opposite Paul Mescal as Stanley, and Anjana Vasan as Stella. The play received widespread critical acclaim[29] and its West End transfer became the fastest-selling production to date in any Ambassador Theatre Group venue.[30] The revival received 6 Laurence Olivier Awards nominations, winning 3; Best Revival, Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress for Mescal and Vasan respectively.[31][32]
In February 2024, Sewanee: the University of the South, a liberal arts school to where much of Tennessee Williams' estate went to, revived the play, under the direction of James Crawford. The Tennessee Williams Center in Sewanee houses the university's theatre departments while the school owns the rights to Williams' works.[33] With the show being sold out within days, the production received local acclaim from residents and the student body.
