LETTERS READ INCUBATOR V: George & Colin Talk about Southern Stereotypes that some Tennessee Williams Figures have Become

LETTERS READ

This outtake is from the 16th full LETTERS READ production, to be podcast here on New Year’s Eve this year. George Saucier talks about the theatricality of southern archetypes while Collin Miller responds.

Intended for a March 2020 reading, from which the full-production and this snippet evolved, this event was to restage the 2018 Letters Read script about the arc of Tennessee Williams's career. Planned with Acting Up (in Acadiana) company members in association with the Acadiana Center for the Arts in Lafayette, Louisiana, this was to be a live performance.

Then, COVID-19 happened, and the idea of live performances became pretty much impossible.

Over several months, with the generous help of Acting Up director, Amy Wagaspac, and these two Acting Up members, Collin and George, Letters Read producer Nancy Sharon Collins created something entirely new for the close of a universally awful year.

Captured in one, two-hour recording, the actors responded to ten questions Collins provided. Ten being nickname, or shorthand, for Tennessee.

Colin and George social distanced in George’s Lafayette studio with Nancy on mute on her phone. Later, Collins social distanced with audio producers Steve Chyzyk and Steve Himmerfarb in Sonic Canvas Studio, New Orleans.

Listen now for this Incubator-style teaser from the full-length conversation to be podcast at 6:00 pm CST, December 31, 2020.

Earlier recordings can also be heard in the Incubator category from two local New Orleanians who knew Williams. When Peter Rogers moved to New York City a long, long time ago, his roommate took him out on the town to a Tennessee Williams play, took him backstage where he met the star, and Williams. Then they all proceeded to go out on the town together. Dorian Bennett, who was in the 2018 Letters Read, remembers the 1980s while Williams lived in New Orleans French Quarter.

Image: 1951 Irving Penn portrait of Tennessee Williams in New York. Credit: Irving Penn for Vogue, April 15, 1951/Condé Nast.