About
TENNESSEE WILLIAMS
and
CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF

• TENNESSEE WILLIAMS (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983) was born Thomas Lanier Williams III, but in 1939 changed his name to “Tennessee,” which was his father’s home state.

• TENNESSEE WILLIAMSreceived two Pulitzer Prize awards, one for A Streetcar Named Desire (1948) and one for CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF (1955), a Tony Award for Best Play for The Rose Tattoo (1951) and four New York Drama Critics’ Circle Awards: The Glass Menagerie (1944), (1947), CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF (1954) and The Night of the Iguana (1961).

• TENNESSEE WILLIAMS is one of only seven playwrights who have won multiple Pulitzer Prize awards.

• Now regarded as a masterpiece, CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF did not win a Tony Award when the original Broadway production debuted in 1955

• CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF includes references to issues that Williams faced in his own life, including illness, homosexuality and alcoholism.

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