A Streetcar Named Desire: West End

Tennessee Williams was born in 1911 in Columbus, Mississippi, where his grandfather was the Episcopal clergyman. When his father, a travelling salesman, moved, with his family to St Louis some years later, both he and his sister found it impossible to settle down to city life. He entered college during the Depression and left after a couple of years to take a clerical job in a shoe company. He stayed there for two years, spending the evenings writing. He entered the University of Iowa in 1938 and completed his course, at the same time holding a large number of part-time jobs of great diversity. He received a Rockefeller fellowship in 1940 for his play Battle of Angels, and he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1948 for A Streetcar Named Desire and in 1955 for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Other plays include Summer and Smoke; The Rose Tattoo; Camino Real; Baby Doll; The Glass Menagerie; Orpheus Descending; Suddenly Last Summer; The Night of the Iguana; Sweet Bird of Youth and The Two-Character Play. Tennessee Williams died in 1983.

Rebecca is a multi-Olivier Award-winning director, who has directed in the UK and internationally. She is Associate Director at the Almeida Theatre and was previously on the Almeida’s Resident Director scheme supported by the Eranda Rothschild Foundation.

For the Almeida: Romeo and Juliet; A Streetcar Named Desire (also West End, Olivier Award for Best Revival, Olivier Award nomination for Best Director); Nine Lessons and Carols: stories for a long winter; The Duchess of Malfi; Three Sisters; Summer and Smoke (also West End; Olivier Award for Best Revival, Olivier Award nomination for Best Director).

Theatre includes: Cabaret (West End/ Broadway, seven Olivier Awards, including Best Director and Best Musical Revival, nine Tony Award nominations including Best Revival of a Musical and Critics’ Circle Award for Best Director); Julie (Internationaal Theater Amsterdam); The House of Bernarda Alba (National Theatre); Sanctuary City (New York Theatre Workshop; Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Director of a Play).

Theatre includes: Amélie the Musical (West End/ The Other Palace/ Watermill Theatre/ UK tour, Olivier Award nomination for Best New Musical); The Windsors: Endgame; The Importance of Being Earnest (West End); The Winter’s Tale; Always Orange; Fall of the Kingdom, Rise of the Foot Soldier; Revolt, She SaidThe Ant and the Cicada (RSC); Valued Friends (Rose Theatre Kingston); Embrace (Birmingham Royal Ballet/ Sadler’s Wells); CinderELLA: A New Musical (Nuffield Southampton Theatres); The Taming of the Shrew (Sherman Theatre/ Tron Theatre); Blue Door (Theatre Royal Bath); The Weir (ETT); Steel (Sheffield Theatres); Julie (Northern Stage); The Double Dealer; Little Light (Orange Tree Theatre); Kindertransport; A Skull in Connemara; Time and the Conways (Nottingham Playhouse); The Open House (Theatre Royal Bath/ Print Room); The Shape of the Pain (China Plate Theatre); Go Between (Young Vic); Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre); Right Now (Theatre Royal Bath/ Bush Theatre/ Traverse Theatre); The Harvest (Theatre Royal Bath/ Soho Theatre); The Chronicles of Kalki (Gate Theatre).

Awards include Broadway World UK Award for Best Set Design of a New Production of a Play or Musical (Amélie the Musical).

Merle works internationally in a wide variety of styles and genres. She is also a lecturer at Central Saint Martins School of Art and Design, Goldsmiths and Rose Bruford College.

Theatre includes: Cock (West End); The Glow; Ear for Eye; a profoundly affectionate passionate devotion to someone (-noun); X; The Mistress Contract (Royal Court); Under Milk Wood; Top Girls; Protest Song (Nation Theatre); Enemy of the People (Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis); Macbeth; The Shawl; Parallel Elektra (Young Vic); Arden of Faversham (RSC); Macbeth (National Theatre of Scotland/ Lincoln Center/ Broadway/ Japan tour); Green Snake (National Theatre of China); Glasgow Girls (National Theatre of Scotland/ National tour); 27; The Wheel (National Theatre of Scotland); Shun-Kin (Complicité); Diener Zweier Herren (Schlosstheater, Vienna); Der Verlorene (Sophiensaele, Berlin).

Opera includes: Aida (Royal Danish Opera); Until the Lions (Opéra National du Rhin); Maria Stuarda (Vereinigte Bühnen, Mönchengladbach/ Krefeld); Der Vetter Aus Dingsda (Oper Graz); Lunatics (Kunstfest Weimar).

Dance includes: The Barbarians In Love; Sun; Political Mother (Hofesh Schechter Company); Il Combattimento; Contagion (Shobana Jeyasingh Dance); 8 Minutes (Alexander Whitley Dance Company); Lovesong (Frantic Assembly); James Son Of James; The Bull; The Flowerbed (Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre).

Film includes: Morituri Te Salutant; Baby.

For the Almeida: Roots; Look Back in Anger; King Lear; Romeo and Juliet; A Streetcar Named Desire (also West End); Summer and Smoke (also West End); Dance Nation.

Theatre includes: Constellations (West End/ Broadway/ Royal Court); Jesus Christ Superstar (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre/ US tour/ Barbican); Next to Normal (West End/Donmar Warehouse); Player Kings (West End/ UK tour); Henry V; Berberian Sound Studio (Donmar Warehouse); The House of Bernarda Alba; The Welkin; Mr Gum and the Dancing Bear – The Musical; Protest Song (National Theatre); Britannicus (Lyric Hammersmith); The Song Project; Gundog; Road; Nuclear War; a profoundly affectionate, passionate devotion to someone (-noun); X; Linda (Royal Court); The Glass Menagerie; West Side Story (Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester/ UK tour); Nora: A Doll’s House (Young Vic/ Citizens Theatre, Glasgow); The Two Character Play (Hampstead Theatre); Harm (Bush Theatre); Burgerz (Hackney Showroom); Julius Caesar; Doctor Faustus (RSC).

Opera includes: Orphée et Eurydice (Royal Opera House/Teatro alla Scala); Aida; Fidelio; Nothing (Royal Danish Opera); Tosca (Opera North/Opera Australia); Phaedra (Royal Opera House).

Dance includes: Cycles, Blak Whyte Gray (Blue Boy Entertainment); The Limit (Royal Opera House); We Are As Gods (James Cousins Company); Enowate (Dickson Mbi); Clowns; Sun; Political Mother; In Your Rooms; Uprising (Hofesh Shechter Company); Don Quixote (Royal Danish Ballet); Untouchable (Royal Ballet); Grey Matter; Tomorrow; Frames (Rambert).

Peter is a freelance Sound Designer for Theatre & Short Film. He is Course Leader for Sound Design & Production at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, Chair of the Association for Sound Design and Production, Sound Associate for NYX Electronic Drone Choir, and a founder member of Stage Sight. Peter also produces and presents the podcast ‘Conversations with Sound Designers’. 

For the Almeida: King Lear; A Streetcar Named Desire (also West End); The Tragedy of Macbeth; The Tragedy of King Richard II; Oil. 

Theatre includes: House of Bernarda Alba; Deep Blue Sea; On The Shore Of The Wide World (National Theatre); Jesus Hopped The ‘A’ Train; Yellowman; It’s All Kicking Off Everywhere; Trade; Barbarians; Fireface (Young Vic); This Is Not Who I Am; Gundog; Nuclear War (Royal Court); A Streetcar Named Desire; Hamlet; Scuttlers; The Last Days of Troy; Blindsided; That Day We Sang; Cannibals; Orpheus Descending; Saturday Night/Sunday Morning; Black Roses (Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester); Masque Of Anarchy (Manchester International Festival); Miss Julie; Black Comedy (Chichester Festival Theatre); The Fruit Trilogy (Southbank Centre/ West Yorkshire Playhouse); Romeo and Juliet (Sheffield Theatres); The Funfair (HOME, Manchester).  

Film includes: Fellow Creatures; Snapshots; Drown; Grin; Swansong; G.O.D.; Glue.  

Angus recently composed the 75-minute original prologue for the West End and Broadway productions of Cabaret. He has released several albums, including Vivarium, MMXIX and Cry Wolf.

For the Almeida: A Streetcar Named Desire (also West End); Three Sisters; Summer and Smoke (also West End).

Theatre includes: Coriolanus (National Theatre); Cabaret (West End/ Broadway); Swive (Shakespeare’s Globe); The Mountaintop (New Vic Theatre); Kite (Soho Theatre); The Father (West End); I am A Camera (Southwark Playhouse); Dream of Perfect Sleep (Finborough Theatre).

Film includes: When I’m Done Dying; Fighting For A City; Little; The Snail Man; Confection; Lost Boy; The Listener; Interlude.

Television includes: Gypsy’s Revenge; The Trials.

Dance includes: exisTence (Hessische Staatsballett); 공·空·Zero: Restriction, Body and Time (ARKO Arts Theatre, Seoul); Out Late (UK tour); What the Moon Saw; From Above (2Faced Dance Company/ International tour); Vestige (The Place); Traces Imprinted (Ballet Cymru).

For the Almeida:  King Lear; Romeo and Juliet; A Streetcar Named Desire (also West End); The Clinic; The Tragedy of Macbeth; The Duchess of Malfi; The Doctor (also West End); Three Sisters; The Wild Duck; Machinal; The Writer; Summer and Smoke (also West End); The Twilight Zone (also West End); The Treatment; Hamlet (also West End/ Park Avenue Armory, New York); Mary Stuart (also West End/ Park Avenue Armory, New York); Oil; Uncle Vanya; Medea; Oresteia (also West End); Game; Mr Burns; Chimerica (also West End).

Theatre includes: Oedipus; Player Kings; Opening Night; A Little Life; The Shark is Broken; All About Eve (West End); Kyoto (RSC); Two Strangers (Carry A Cake Across New York) (Kiln Theatre/ West End); The Wife of Willesden (Kiln Theatre/ BAM, New York); Pass Over (Kiln Theatre); Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (West End/ Broadway); The Inheritance; A View from the Bridge (Young Vic/ West End/ Broadway); The Jungle (Young Vic/ West End/ St. Ann’s Warehouse, New York/ Curran Theater, San Francisco); Yerma (Young Vic/ Park Avenue Armory, New York).

Film includes: Hamlet; Why It’s Kicking Off Everywhere; The Exception; Departure.

Television includes: Together (BAFTA for Best Single Drama); The Trial; A Murder in the Family.