Tennessee Williams and Elia Kazan: A Collaboration in the Theatre

This is a book-length study of the collaboration between Tennessee Williams and Elia Kazan. Their intense creative relationship, fuelled by a deep personal affinity that endured until Williams’s death, lasted from 1947 until 1960. The production of A Streetcar Named Desire established Williams as America’s greatest playwright and Kazan as its most important director; together they created some of the most influential theatrical events of the post-war era. In this book Brenda Murphy analyses this artistic partnership and the plays and theatrical techniques the artists developed collaboratively in their productions of A Streetcar Named Desire, Camino Real, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and Sweet Bird of Youth. In addition, Murphy suggests alternative ways to examine the working relationship between playwright and director which can be applied to other practitioners in twentieth-century drama. The book contains numerous illustrations from important productions.