SCHOLARS CONFERENCE – Roundtable: Writers and Directors Influenced by Tennessee Williams

(Included in Scholars Conference Pass, VIP Pass, and LitPass)

Friday, March 27

2:00–3:30 PM
Roundtable: Writers and Directors Influenced by Tennessee Williams
What do revered 20th-century playwright Lorraine Hansberry (author of A Raisin in the Sun), boundary-pushing auteur John Waters (director of Pink Flamingoes and Hairspray), celebrated Irish dramatist Brian Friel (author of Dancing at Lughnasa), and Pulitzer Prize–winning playwrights Eboni Booth (2024) and Branden Jacobs Jenkins (2025) have in common? Esteemed academics trace Williams’s surprising hidden and not-so-hidden influences on groundbreaking authors and works in two centuries.
Moderator: Bess Rowen, Villanova University     
Panelists: Stephen Cedars, Graduate Center, City University of New York; Benjamin Gillespie, Santa Clara University; John “Ray” Proctor, Tulane University; Sara Warner, Cornell University
Williams Research Center, $10 or Scholars Conference Pass, VIP Pass, or LitPass