Brandon Flynn and Robin Lord Taylor.Photo:Taylor Hill/WireImage; Dia Dipasupil/Getty
Taylor Hill/WireImage; Dia Dipasupil/Getty
Brandon FlynnandRobin Lord Taylorare bringing two pop-culture giants back to the theater.
Other stars include Alison Cimmet (as director Margo Jones), Ellie Ricker (as Jo) and Sebastian Treviño (as Pancho Rodriguez).
Now it was just time to get Williams on board. As Kazan recalled inhis 1997 memoir, he gave Brando $20 to get himself up to Provincetown. “After three days I called Tennessee and asked him what he’d thought of the actor I’d sent him. ‘What actor?’ he asked,” Kazan said. “No one had showed up, so I figured I’d lost 20 bucks and began to look elsewhere.”
Brandon Flynn and Marlon Brando.Cindy Ord/Getty; John Kobal Foundation/Getty
Cindy Ord/Getty; John Kobal Foundation/Getty
But Brando did show up — just a few days later. Turns out, despite the $20, he was flat broke and decided to hitchhike to the Cape Cod destination with his girlfriend instead. “He was just about the best looking man I’ve ever seen,” said Williams inhis 1975 autobiography,Memoirs.
It gets crazier from there. TheGlass Menagerieplaywright recounted that his house was in “domestic cataclysm” when Brando showed up. A light fuse had blown, and there were troubles with the pipes, the bathroom blocked and water flooding the kitchen floor. So Brando got to work — just not on his audition.
“First he stuck his hand into the overflowing toilet bowl and unclogged the drain, then he tackled the fuses. Within an hour, everything worked,” Williams said. “You’d think he had spent his entire antecedent life repairing drains. Then he read the script aloud, just as he played it. It was the most magnificent reading I ever heard, and he had the part immediately.”
Robin Lord Taylor and Tennessee Williams.Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty; Jack Mitchell/Getty
Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty; Jack Mitchell/Getty
Williams, meanwhile, would continue to thrive as a playwright, penning hits likeThe Rose Tattoo,Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,Suddenly Last SummerandSweet Bird of Youth(among many, many others) and winning two Pulitzer Prizes and two Tony Awards. He’d also write screenplays, teleplays, short stories, novels and poetry.
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Tennessee Williams.Herb Snitzer / Getty Images
It’s unclear how much of that will make its way intoKowalski. Per an official release, the play “transports audiences to a pivotal moment in theatrical history, exploring the tangled relationships and creative tensions surrounding Williams as he crafts his masterpiece.”
The play “unfolds over one sultry night,” and “offers a behind-the-scenes look at the raw forces that birthed one of the 20th century’s greatest works, weaving memory and myth into a haunting exploration of ambition, artistry, and desire.”
Tickets forKowalskiare now on sale.
source: people.com
