^{Festival curator David Kaplan}

Last Call for the Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival

by Steve Desroches

Anyone familiar with Provincetown can tell you how impactful summer is on the Cape tip. And not just the economics of it all or the calendar full of events, festivals, and revelry, but also how life-changing spending a summer in town can be, personally. That certainly was the case for Tennessee Williams who spent four summers here—1940, 1941, 1944, and 1947—forever shifting the trajectory of his life in every way. He fell in love, got his heart broken, began great works, met all kinds of people, from artists to fishermen, and partied at the Atlantic House during the blackout years of World War II, a place where several photos of him grace the walls, including a nude shot from out at the beach. And those collective four summers created a forever link to Provincetown with one of the greatest playwrights of all time and eventually sparked the Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival, an annual late-September event that for 20 years has invited the world to town presenting inventive productions of his work, creative parties, and more. 

But now it’s ending its four-day format and presenting the final festival this year with the theme Last Call and quoting Alexandra DeLago from Williams’ Sweet Bird of Youth, “There’s no more valuable knowledge than knowing the right time to go.” But what about now makes it the time for the festival to take a final bow? 

“Because times have changed,” says David Kaplan, longtime curator of the festival. “Really, because we can’t house 100 people for free anymore. It’s cheaper to go to London for a theater weekend. Really. It’s just too expensive. The town has changed.”

While ticket sales remained steady and interest in the festival stayed strong, with an ongoing housing crisis compounded by a lack of affordability, it just isn’t sustainable to present a festival as in years past. Donated housing for the actors, crew, and staff that made the festival run continues to dwindle and prices are way too high for the festival to be able to afford to pay for accommodations itself. 

The decision was not made lightly, says Kaplan, but it was decided two years ago that the 2025 festival would be the last. And it’s not just the affordability problems plaguing Provincetown that led to the festival ending, but also a changing landscape in funding for the arts, particularly from institutions that award grants, as their requirements have increasingly become limiting and restrictive. When applying for grants some organizations have written back with inquiries as to how the work in the festival addresses the issue of “food insecurity” or if the festival could be adapted to include “toddlers.” While the festival has presented incredibly imaginative works, the growing demands of the grantmakers that couldn’t be met also meant less revenue for the festival.

“There is an emerging alarm to make the arts, especially theater arts, the handmaiden of political activism,” says Kaplan. “Tennessee Williams is too ambivalent to make that appropriate.” 

In addition, getting visas for participants outside the United States has become financially challenging, and the bureaucracy increasingly tough to maneuver. All that being said, the entity of the Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival will adapt. 

“We still have stuff to do,” says Kaplan. Going forward, the festival will present works of Williams on a pop-up basis. One of the hallmarks of the festival was using non-traditional spaces to present performances, and Kaplan says there are places around Provincetown where he’s long wanted to stage a work and will do so once they pivot as an institution to their new purpose, as well as presenting dynamic works in this year’s festival. He’s heard from theater troupes in Mexico and Brazil that specifically want to come to Provincetown to present their take on Williams. And someday that will happen, he says. 

The audiences that come to Provincetown allow for real experimentation, allowing for a freedom you don’t find at Williams festivals in New Orleans or St. Louis, says Kaplan. The work of Williams needs Provincetown to continue to be relevant to global theater culture, an achievement Kaplan says the festival takes pride in.

“That there is an awareness that Williams is not just a gay playwright, or a classic playwright, or even an American playwright,” says Kaplan. “We made people aware of his oceanic depths. We didn’t reduce him, we expanded him. That’s what makes me most proud.”

The Provincetown Tennessee Williams Festival is from Thursday, September 25 through Sunday, September 28. For shows, times, tickets and passes visit twptown.org.

2025 Festival
The final Festival will include the following productions, Thursday, September 25 – Sunday, September 28, at various venues:

Sweet Bird of Youth by Tennessee WilliamsProduced by The Goat Exchange

Clothes for a Summer Hotel by Tennessee Williams Produced by The Tennessee Williams Theater Company of New Orleans

The Two Character Play by Tennessee Williams Produced by Playhouse Creatures

This Property is Condemned by Tennessee Williams Directed by David Kaplan with Alison Fraser

Lifeboat Drill by Tennessee Williams Directed by Davis Robinson

Beckett Shorts / A Catastrophic Cabaret  by Samuel Beckett Directed by Brenna Geffers with her Philadelphia based Die-Cast Ensemble

A Last Call Anthology: A collection of Williams exits performed by Festival artists, technicians, and staff from this year and years past. Featuring The Frosted Glass Coffin by Tennessee Williams directed by Megan Nussle, who directed The Witch for TW Fest 2020 and 2021.

Songs Until We Meet Again / A Musical Lagniappe: George Maurer curates a concert performed by the artists of the Festival.

TWI Deep Dives: Tennessee Williams Institute (TWI), the Festival’s graduate-level symposium, presents deep dives into unknown and well-known texts.