Photo: Ellen McDermott
Despite a lengthy education in the arts, actor Jacob Storms wasn’t terribly familiar with Tennessee Williams. Growing up in Portland, Oregon, he attended da Vinci Arts Middle School, an arts-focused public school, and then the Northwest Academy, a private arts high school. He vaguely remembers seeing the film adaptation of A Streetcar Named Desire with Vivien Leigh and Marlon Brando. But that was about as far as any study of Williams and his work was concerned. Then, about 10 years ago, he was invited back to his middle school to talk to students prior to a screening of the film version of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, chosen because Elizabeth Taylor’s great-granddaughter was a student at the school and her mother an active parent. Storms was transfixed by the film and bewitched by Williams. He couldn’t get Tennessee out of his mind. He decided he should learn more and educate himself on the world of Williams. As he walked into Powell’s Books he saw a sign from the universe.
“I literally walked in and his biography was in the display in the front of the store,” says Storms. “His photo was right there on the cover. It looked like we could have been brothers. I didn’t really know what he looked like before then.”
Storms’ appetite for Williams became insatiable. He read every play, biography, letters, and journals he could find on the great American playwright. Then his friend, actor and playwright Charles Busch gave him a copy of the 1995 book Tom: The Unknown Tennessee Williams by Lyle Leverich, which changed the trajectory of his career and quite possibly his life. In it the book tells the story of when Thomas Lanier Williams III transforms into Tennessee Williams, a period of time in which Provincetown plays a vital role. Williams arrived in Provincetown for the summer of 1940 a lanky struggling writer who relied on the kindness of strangers, in this case his Portuguese neighbors who fed him cod and kale soup. Come his fourth summer in town in 1947 he was on the cusp of superstardom as A Streetcar Named Desire would make its Broadway debut in December. And in those years in between Williams grew up, gained a few emotional scars, and began what would be an almost mythical existence as one of the most important playwrights of the 20th century.
Firmly under the spell of Williams, Storms became particularly interested in Williams life from 1939 to 1945, when the world was at war and everything was changing rapidly, including Williams personally. Storms decided to write a solo show about Williams and the result, Tennessee Rising: The Dawn of Tennessee Williams, is part of this year’s Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival. Speaking from Little Rock, Arkansas, where he’ll perform Tennessee Rising, Storms sighs when he thinks of the journey this show has gone, and has taken him on. “Honestly, I just wanted to give up so many times I was so overwhelmed,” says Storms. “I mean, who am I to write about this great writer?” And he almost did give up, but his good friend and fellow actor Taylor Negron encouraged him to keep on going and agreed to direct. Sadly, Negron died of cancer in 2015, two years before Tennessee Rising had its debut at New York City’s United Solo Theatre Festival, where it won Best One-Man Show.
Actor Alan Cumming then came on as director and the two worked on the show with plans to bring it to the New Orleans Tennessee Williams Festival in March of 2020, which obviously did not happen as the world shut down that month due to the pandemic. But the show rallied in 2021 to have an off-Broadway run and then a celebrated run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2023. While Storms was part of the Provincetown Tennessee Williams Festival in 2019, bringing this show to town is particularly an accomplishment and a thrill for him. Williams himself said much of his success was due to a “religion on endurance.” Storms is much the same, particularly with Tennessee Rising. And taking it to Provincetown is a bit of a pilgrimage to the site where Tom Williams found Tennessee Williams and never let him go.
“The Provincetown stuff is so crucial to this period of his life,” says Storms who heads to Seattle and Harrisonburg, Virginia, with the show after the festival. “One of the most important things to happen then, that he did not like to talk about, was his relationship with Kip Kiernan, who broke his heart. Provincetown is really where this shift in his life takes place.”
Tennessee Rising is performed at the Grotta Bar, 186 Commercial St. as part of the Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival on Thursday, September 26 at 12 p.m. and 7 p.m., Friday, September 27 at 3 p.m., Saturday, September 28 at 3 p.m. and 7 p.m., and Sunday, September 29 at 3 p.m. Running time is one hour. Tickets ($45) for this and other festival shows are available at twptown.org. For more information call 866.789.8366.
