This year’s festival, which runs Sept. 25-28 in locations throughout Provincetown, includes the well-known “Sweet Bird of Youth,” and one of Williams’s last plays (“Lifeboat Drill”), as well as “This Property Is Condemned,” “Clothes for a Summer Hotel,” and “The Two Character Play.”
The lineup also includes programming designed to help attendees gain a greater understanding of Williams beyond the plays themselves, and will include a selection of short works by Samuel Beckett, “A Collection of Exits” (A Last Call Anthology featuring performers from over the years), “A Musical Lagniappe,” and “TWI Deep Dives” (Tennessee Williams Institute conversations around familiar and rarely produced work).
“All of the pieces share the theme of two people who meet and say goodbye,” Kaplan says. “It’s an opportunity to pause and reflect, not on what we are losing, but on what we have.”
One of the defining elements of the festival is the unusual stages for each of the plays, which, over the years, have included a pool, an attic, hotel rooms, the space underneath a staircase, a model ship inside the library, and the dunes, to name a few.
This year, performances will take place on the lawn of the Cabral House (160 Commercial Street) where a sign reads “This property is condemned”; in Purgatory, a club in Gifford House, where the working smoke machines can create the fog required for “Clothes for a Summer Hotel,” in the public radio station WOMR, and in a basement bar.
“We play the town like a piano,” Kaplan says, noting that performances will take place along the length of Commercial Street. With most performances lasting 90 minutes or less, Kaplan encourages audiences to attend several to get a sense of the depth and breadth of Williams’ work.
“Williams lived all over the world and set his plays all over America,” he says. “He was not just a gay or Southern writer. He’s virtuosic, with a global impact, [and] helps define American identity.”
When curating the festival, Kaplan says he looks for smaller, ensemble-based companies interested in quirky, absurd pieces that reveal different aspects of Williams beyond “The Glass Menagerie,” “A Streetcar Named Desire,” or “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.”
“The festival brings light to Williams’ late work,” says Davis Robinson, whose acclaimed Beau Jest Moving Theatre makes its fifth appearance at the festival this year.
“Williams wrote every day, and his work encompassed science fiction, camp, and the grotesque in imaginative ways,” he says. “He was also influenced by Samuel Beckett and these works reflect that spare dialogue and physical comedy.”
Beau Jest will perform three works at the festival, after performances in Boston at the Boston Center for the Arts Sept. 19-21. These include “Fin du Monde,” a live audio presentation of one of Williams’ unpublished short stories; Beckett’s “Come and Go,” performed by marionettes (courtesy of Beau Jest guest artist Libby Marcus); and “Lifeboat Drill,” Williams’ short, absurdist play about a nonagenarian couple on cruise ship (performed by Beau Jest co-founders Robinson and Lisa Tucker).
“Our choice of subject matter is driven by what is going on in the world, who wants to work on a new piece, and what source material excites us all physically,” Robinson says. “In Tennessee’s case it is the combination of rich language, absurd humor, physical challenges, and the beauty and zaniness of P-town and the Outer Cape.”
“When we put these plays together in conversation with each other, we noticed they all end with the characters holding hands or holding on to each other,” Robinson says. “They may be about endings, but they are not about dying — they are about surviving.”
Brenna Geffers, whose Philadelphia-based company, Die-Cast, focuses on ensemble-driven, experimental performances in non-traditional spaces, returns to the festival with “Catastrophe: A Beckettian Cabaret,” which includes original music and four short plays by Samuel Beckett: “Cascando,” “Catastrophe,” “What Where,” and “Ohio Impromptu.”
Geffers says her company looks for unusual spaces to stage their work, to change the way audiences interact with the material. The Beckettian Cabaret, she says, is “a cabaret at the end of the world,” so the setting in a basement dive bar (Grotto) is perfect.
“The characters in the Beckett plays are caught in stasis,” she says. “We decided small instruments that make unusual sounds would help us think about the music and the moment.”
The “orchestra” for the Beckettian Cabaret consists of a toy piano, a ukulele with electric bass strings, a triangle, and a concertina.
Composing original music is an essential part of Die-Cast’s process and reflects the mood of the evening, Geffers says. “Fifteen members of our ensemble contribute to the creation of our pieces, even though they might not perform in them,” she says.
“We also drew on Irish music, and the musical hall and vaudeville sounds of pre-World War II Paris, which would have resonated with Beckett,” Geffers says.
Kaplan also incorporates live music into “This Property Is Condemned,” in which he directs Alison Fraser (Tony nominee for “The Secret Garden” and “Romance Romance”) and John F. Higgins, but takes a minimalist approach to the set with only a rope ladder and chairs scattered around the yard for the audience to sit in.
“Spoken word is an incantation,” he says. “You don’t have to have machines and screens to accomplish that. These words cast spells. I hope audiences will come and be enraptured.”
Commonwealth Shakespeare Company announces shows for 30th Anniversary season
Commonwealth Shakespeare Company’s founding artistic director Steven Maler will direct “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” – his company’s first production – to celebrate the 30th anniversary of CSC’s free summer productions of Shakespeare on the Boston Common, July 22 – August 9, 2026.
The rest of the anniversary season includes the return of “A Christmas Carol” to the Emerson Cutler Majestic Theater Dec. 6-23; “Romeo & Juliet,” as part of CSC Stage2, designed for middle and high school students May 21 – 29, with two public performances at 2 pm and 7:30 pm on Saturday, May 30 at The Strand Theatre. (Tickets are free thanks to the Theatre for Kids program that is part of the Rodman for Kids charity.); and a 30th anniversary gala April 11 at The Newbury. For more information, go to commshakes.org.
Apollinaire Theatre Company 30th Anniversary Festival
Apollinaire Theatre Company celebrates three decades of storytelling with a two-day festival in Chelsea Square, Sept. 20 and 21. In partnership with Teatro Chelsea and the City of Chelsea, the festival includes theater-themed escape rooms (including one focused on a murder mystery and another on a haunted “Unquiet Room,” created by award-winning actor Brooks Reeves), theater workshops (offered in both English and Spanish), and a play created in 48 hours. There will also be food and music from local vendors, face painting and kids’ activities, and season announcements from both Apollinaire and Teatro Chelsea. To sign up for workshops or the Escape Rooms, go to https://www.apollinairetheatre.com/productions/productionspark.php.
THE PROVINCETOWN TENNESSEE WILLIAMS THEATER FESTIVAL