Boyhood hometown of Tennessee Williams celebrates playwright's life WRITER'S ROOTS

By: By Shelia Byrd | THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: October 18, 2009

Fans of the playwright Tennessee Williams have been shouting for Stella this weekend in Clarksdale, Miss.

Williams drew some of his most powerful images from his boyhood hometown in the Mississippi Delta, where an annual festival now celebrates the city's role in Williams' award-winning stories.

The name Stella in A Streetcar Named Desire belonged to a friend of Williams' mother in Clarksdale. Brick, the alcoholic athlete played by Paul Newman in the 1958 film, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, was the name of a local boy who bullied Williams while he was a student at Oakhurst Elementary.

The Tennessee Williams Festival, produced by Coahoma Community College, began Friday and by the time it ends today will have featured a Stella-shouting contest, acting competitions, porch plays and panel discussions about Williams and his life in Mississippi. A BBC documentary of last year's festival will be aired. Producer Carmel Lonergan said it shows links between Williams' upbringing and surroundings and many of his dramas.

The Clarksdale gathering is one of several Tennessee Williams festivals held around the nation each year. Oscar-winning actress Olympia Dukakis performed at one early in September in Columbus, the eastern Mississippi city where Williams was born in 1911. The 24th annual Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival is next March.

The playwright -- born Thomas Lanier Williams -- lived as a child in Clarksdale with his maternal grandparents, The Rev. Walter Dakin and his wife, Rose. The locals say Williams would go on parish calls with his grandfather, and often heard church gossip and colorful tales in the early 1900s.

"Tennessee was just fascinated by the Clark family and the Cutrers," Coahoma College spokeswoman Panny Mayfield said, referring to two prominent Clarksdale families. "The Cutrers were very flamboyant people. Their home was a mecca for international people. They had masked balls and elaborate house parties. We're talking about cotton money."

Mayfield said that J.W. Cutrer was a successful lawyer, and his wife's name was Blanche, another character from Streetcar.

The St. George's Episcopal Church, where Williams' grandfather once served as priest, still stands, as does Cutrer Mansion, where masked balls inspired imagery in some of the writer's plays, as well as the fictional home Belle Rive in Streetcar.

The morality conflicts woven through Williams' plays are believed to have roots in his years living in the rectory, said Mayfield. Williams, who was openly gay, once said it wasn't until he moved to New Orleans that he was able to "live freely," she said.