by Tennessee Williams

Tennessee Williams (1911-1983)
In Tom:The Unknown Tennessee Williams, biographer Lyle Leverich writes, "For the first thirty years of his life, [Williams] was living The Glass Menagerie." In 1943 he signed a six-month contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer that resulted in the unproduced screenplay, The Gentleman Caller, a precursor of the dramatic script The Glass Menagerie written later that same year. The Glass Menagerie opened on December 26, 1944.
   Scholars generally see The Glass Menagerie as heralding the period of Williams' greatest dramatic works, among others: A Streetcar Names Desire, The Rose Tattoo, and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. During this great period of dramatic activity Williams matured artistically, moving beyond the frankly autobiographic material of The Glass Menagerie. Yet on some level, the themes that animate this work—the destruction of the outsider or misfit, the collapse of family and social structures, and the battle to sublimate sexual desire into art—continue to gleam brightly in William's most highly regarded works.