A Chronology

1907	June 3: Cornelius Coffin Williams and Edwina Estelle Dakin marry in Columbus, Mississippi.
1909	November 19: Sister, Rose Isabelle Williams, is born in Columbus, Mississippi.
1911	March 26: Thomas Lanier Williams III is born in Columbus, Mississippi.
1918	July: Williams family moves to St. Louis, Missouri.
1919	February 21: Brother, Walter Dakin Williams, is born in St. Louis, Missouri.
1928	Short story “The Vengeance of Nitocris” is published in Weird Tales magazine.
	July: Williams’ grandfather, Walter Edwin Dakin (1857-1954), takes young Tom on a tour of Europe.
1929	September: Begins classes at the University of Missouri at Columbia.
1930	Writes the one-act play Beauty is the Word for a local contest.
1932	Summer: Fails ROTC and is taken out of college by his father and put to work as a clerk at the International Shoe Company.
1936	January: Enrolls in extension courses at Washington University, St. Louis.
1937	March 18 and 20: First full-length play, Candles to the Sun, is produced by the Mummers, a semi-professional theater company in St. Louis.
	September: Transfers to the University of Iowa.
	November 30 and December 4: Fugitive Kind is performed by the Mummers.
1938	Graduates from the University of Iowa with a degree in English.
	Completes the play, Not About Nightingales.
1939	Story magazine publishes “The Field of Blue Children” with the first printed use of his professional name, “Tennessee Williams.”
	Receives an award from the Group Theatre for a group of short plays collectively titled American Blues, which leads to his association with Audrey Wood, his agent for the next thirty-two years.
1940	January through June: Studies playwriting with John Gassner at the New School for Social Research in New York City.
	December 30: Battle of Angels, starring Miriam Hopkins, suffers a disastrous first night during its out-of-town tryout in Boston and closes shortly thereafter.
1942	December: At a cocktail party thrown by Lincoln Kirstein in New York, meets James Laughlin, founder of New Directions, who is to become Williams’ lifelong friend and publisher.
1943	Drafts a screenplay, The Gentleman Caller, while under contract in Hollywood with Metro Goldwyn Mayer: rejected by the studio, he later rewrites it as The Glass Menagerie.
	October 13: A collaboration with his friend Donald Windham, You Touched Me! (based on a story by D.H. Lawrence), premieres at the Cleveland Playhouse.
1944	December 26: The Glass Menagerie opens in Chicago starring Laurette Taylor.
	A group of poems titled “The Summer Belvedere” is published in Five Young American Poets, 1944. (All books listed here are published by New Directions unless otherwise indicated.)
1945	March 25: Stairs to the Roof premieres at the Pasadena Playhouse in California.
	March 31: The Glass Menagerie opens on Broadway and goes on to win the Drama Critics Circle Award for best play of the year.
	September 25: You Touched Me! opens on Broadway, and is later published by Samuel French.
	December: 27 Wagons Full of Cotton and Other Plays is published.
1947	Summer: Meets Frank Merlo (1929-1963) in Provincetown—starting in 1948 they become lovers and companions, and remain together for fourteen years.
	December 3: A Streetcar Named Desire, directed by Elia Kazan and starring Jessica Tandy, Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter and Karl Malden, opens on Broadway to rave reviews and wins the Pulitzer Prize and the Drama Critics Circle Award.
1948	October 6: Summer and Smoke opens on Broadway and closes in just over three months.
1949	January: One Arm and Other Stories is published.
1950	The novel The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone is published. The film version of The Glass Menagerie is released.
1951	February 3: The Rose Tattoo opens on Broadway starring Maureen Stapleton and Eli Wallach and wins the Tony Award for best play of the year.
	The film version of A Streetcar Named Desire is released starring Vivian Leigh as Blanche and Marlon Brando as Stanley.
1952	April 24: A revival of Summer and Smoke directed by Jose Quintero and starring Geraldine Page opens off-Broadway at the Circle at the Square and is a critical success.
	The National Institute of Arts and Letters inducts Williams as a member.
1953	March 19: Camino Real opens on Broadway and after a harsh critical reception closes within two months.
1954	A book of stories, Hard Candy, is published in August.
1955	March 24: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof opens on Broadway directed by Elia Kazan and starring Barbara Bel Geddes, Ben Gazzara and Burl Ives. Cat later wins the Pulitzer Prize and the Drama Critics Circle Award.
	The film version of The Rose Tattoo, for which Anna Magnani later wins an Academy Award, is released.
1956	The film Baby Doll, with a screenplay by Williams and directed by Elia Kazan, is released amid some controversy and is blacklisted by Catholic leader Cardinal Spellman.
	June: In the Winter of Cities, Williams’ first book of poetry, is published.
1957	March 21: Orpheus Descending, a revised version of Battle of Angels, directed by Harold Clurman, opens on Broadway but closes after two months.
1958	February 7: Suddenly Last Summer and Something Unspoken open off-Broadway under the collective title Garden District.
	The film version of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is released.
1959	March 10: Sweet Bird of Youth opens on Broadway and runs for three months.
	The film version of Suddenly Last Summer, with a screenplay by Gore Vidal, is released.
1960	November 10: The comedy Period of Adjustment opens on Broadway and runs for over four months.
	The film version of Orpheus Descending is released under the title The Fugitive Kind.
1961	December 29: The Night of the Iguana opens on Broadway and runs for nearly ten months.
	The film versions of Summer and Smoke and The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone are released.
1962	The film versions of Sweet Bird of Youth and Period of Adjustment are released.
1963	January 15: The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore opens on Broadway, starring Tallulah Bankhead, and immediately closes due to a blizzard and a newspaper strike.
	September: Frank Merlo dies of lung cancer.
1964	The film version of Night of the Iguana is released.
1966	February 22: Slapstick Tragedy (The Mutilated and The Gnädiges Fräulein) runs on Broadway for less than a week.
	December: A novella and stories are published under the title The Knightly Quest.
1968	March 27: Kingdom of Earth opens on Broadway under the title The Seven Descents of Myrtle.
	The film version of The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore is released under the title Boom!
1969	May 11: In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel opens off-Broadway and runs for three weeks.
	Committed by his brother Dakin for three months to the Renard Psychiatric Division of Barnes Hospital in St. Louis.
	The film version of Kingdom of Earth is released under the title The Last of the Mobile Hot Shots.
	Awarded Doctor of Humanities degree by the University of Missouri and a Gold Medal for Drama by the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
1970	February: A book of plays, Dragon Country, is published.
1971	Williams breaks with his agent Audrey Wood. Bill Barnes assumes his representation, and then later Mitch Douglas.
1972	April 2: Small Craft Warnings opens off-Broadway.
	Williams is given a Doctor of Humanities degree by the University of Hartford.
1973	March 1: Out Cry, the revised version of The Two-Character Play, opens on Broadway.
1974	September: Eight Mortal Ladies Possessed, a book of short stories, is published.
	Williams is presented with an Entertainment Hall of Fame Award and a Medal of Honor for Literature from the National Arts Club.
1975	The novel Moise and the World of Reason is published by Simon and Schuster and Williams’ Memoirs is published by Doubleday.
1976	January 20: This Is (An Entertainment) opens in San Francisco.
	June: The Red Devil Battery Sign closes during its out-of-town tryout in Boston.
	November 23: Eccentricities of a Nightingale, a rewritten version of Summer and Smoke, opens in New York.
	April: Williams’ second volume of poetry, Androgyne, Mon Amour, is published.
1977	May 11: Vieux Carrè opens on Broadway and closes within two weeks.
1978	Tiger Tail premieres at the Alliance Theater in Atlanta, Georgia and a revised version premieres the following year at the Hippodrome Theater in Gainesville, Florida.
1979	January 10: A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur opens off-Broadway.
	Kirche, Kutchen, und Kinder premieres off-Broadway at the Jean Cocteau Repertory Theater.
	Williams is presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Kennedy Center Honors in Washington by President Jimmy Carter.
1980	January 25: Will Mr. Merriwether Return from Memphis? premieres for a limited run at the Tennessee Williams Performing Arts Center in Key West, Florida.
	March 26: Williams’ last Broadway play, Clothes for a Summer Hotel, opens and closes after 15 performances.
1981	August 24: Something Cloudy, Something Clear premieres off-Broadway at the Jean Cocteau Repertory Theater.
1982	May 8: The second of two versions of A House Not Meant to Stand opens for a limited run at the Goodman Theater in Chicago.
1983	February 24: Williams is found dead in his room at the Hotel Elysee in New York City. It is determined from an autopsy that the playwright died from asphyxiation, choking on a plastic medicine cap. Williams is later buried in St. Louis.
1984	July: Stopped Rocking and Other Screenplays is published.
1985	November: Collected Stories, with an introduction by Gore Vidal, is published.
1995	The first half of Lyle Leverich’s important biography, Tom: The Unknown Tennessee Williams is published by Crown Publishers.
1996	September 5: Rose Isabelle Williams dies in Tarrytown, New York.
	September 5: The Notebook of Trigorin, in a version revised by Williams, opens at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park.
1998	March 5: Not About Nightingales premieres at the Royal National Theatre in London, directed by Trevor Nunn, later moves to Houston, Texas, and opens November 25, 1999 on Broadway.
1999	November: Spring Storm is published.
2000	May: Stairs to the Roof is published.
	November: The Selected Letters of Tennessee Williams, Volume I is published.
2001	June: Fugitive Kind is published.
2002	April: Collected Poems is published.
2004	August: Candles to the Sun is published.
	November: The Selected Letters of Tennessee Williams, Volume II is published.
2005	April: Mister Paradise and Other One-Act Plays is published.