Stairs to the Roof is a play by Tennessee Williams, the last of his apprentice plays. It was completed in December 1941, and premiered (as a full-scale production) at the Pasadena Playhouse on February 26, 1947.
Thomas Lanier Williams III, known by his pen name Tennessee Williams, was an American playwright. Along with contemporaries Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, he is considered among the three foremost playwrights of 20th-century American drama.
An apprenticeship is a system of training a new generation of practitioners of a trade or profession with on-the-job training and often some accompanying study. Apprenticeships can also enable practitioners to gain a license to practice in a regulated profession. Most of their training is done while working for an employer who helps the apprentices learn their trade or profession, in exchange for their continued labor for an agreed period after they have achieved measurable competencies. Apprenticeship lengths vary significantly across sectors, professions, roles and cultures. People who successfully complete an apprenticeship in some cases can reach the "journeyman" or professional certification level of competence. In others can be offered a permanent job at the company that provided the placement. Although the formal boundaries and terminology of the apprentice/journeyman/master system often do not extend outside guilds and trade unions, the concept of on-the-job training leading to competence over a period of years is found in any field of skilled labor.
The Pasadena Playhouse is a historic performing arts venue located 39 S. El Molino Avenue in Pasadena, California, United States. The 686-seat auditorium produces a variety of cultural and artistic events, professional shows, and community engagements each year.
The play is based on earlier stories written by Williams, including "The Swan" and most specifically, one of the same title written in October 1936, after he had recovered from a nervous breakdown arising from his experiences working in the relentlessly mechanical world of the large International Shoes factory in St. Louis, Missouri. Unlike that story, the play is optimistic, with elements of romance and fantasy, and a deus ex machina ending.
Deus ex machina is a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem in a story is suddenly and abruptly resolved by an unexpected and seemingly unlikely occurrence, typically so much as to seem contrived. Its function can be to resolve an otherwise irresolvable plot situation, to surprise the audience, to bring the tale to a happy ending, or act as a comedic device.
The subtitle of the play (and of the earlier story) is "A Prayer for the Wild of Heart That are Kept in Cages"; though that phrase conveys the seriousness of the playwright's chosen topic, its treatment, particularly the elements not present in the original story (such as the Mummers play-within-a-play and the swan-on-a-lake scenes), lighten the tone with elements of fantasy.
Williams scholar Allean Hale, in his introduction to a 2000 New Directions Publishers edition of the play ( ISBN0-8112-1435-4), commented on similarities the play shares with the 1923 expressionist play The Adding Machine by Elmer Rice. Both plays show the robotic typing of office workers, both have a scene of divine intervention and another set by a lake, and both make use of generically named characters (Rice's male lead is "Mr. Zero"; Williams' female lead is "Girl"; Rice has Messrs. One, Two, Three, etc.; Williams' has Messrs. P, D, Q, T).
The International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is a numeric commercial book identifier which is intended to be unique. Publishers purchase ISBNs from an affiliate of the International ISBN Agency.
Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas. Expressionist artists have sought to express the meaning of emotional experience rather than physical reality.
Playwright's comments
In "Random Observations" written as a preface in 1941, Williams noted that the play was "written for both the stage and the screen" with Burgess Meredith in mind as the protagonist. He acknowledges the play's "didactic material" as being perhaps inappropriate as the country was preparing to go to war, but he felt his protagonist's problems were "universal and everlasting,", an assessment that made the play appropriate even during such a trying time.
Oliver Burgess Meredith was an American actor, director, producer, and writer. Active for more than six decades, Meredith has been called "a virtuosic actor" and "one of the most accomplished actors of the century". A lifetime member of the Actors Studio by invitation, he won several Emmys, was the first male actor to win the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor twice, and was nominated for two Academy Awards.
A protagonist is a main character of a story.
World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. The vast majority of the world's countries—including all the great powers—eventually formed two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. A state of total war emerged, directly involving more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. The major participants threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. World War II was the deadliest conflict in human history, marked by 70 to 85 million fatalities, most of whom were civilians in the Soviet Union and China. It included massacres, the genocide of the Holocaust, strategic bombing, premeditated death from starvation and disease, and the only use of nuclear weapons in war.
Six years later, in remarks published in the Pasadena Playhouse program notes, Williams commented on the play:
When I look back at Stairs to the Roof...I see its faults very plainly, as plainly as you may see them, but still I do not feel apologetic about this play. Unskilled and awkward as I was at this initial period of my playwriting, I certainly had a moral earnestness which I cannot boast of today, and I think that moral earnestness is a good thing for any times, but particularly for these times. I wish I still had the idealistic passion of [protagonist] Benjamin Murphy! You may smile as I do at the sometimes sophomoric aspect of his excitement, but I hope you will respect, as I do, the purity of his feeling and the honest concern which he had in his heart for the basic problem of mankind, which is to dignify our lives with a certain freedom.
The Missouri Review is a literary magazine founded in 1978 by the University of Missouri. It publishes fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction quarterly. With its open submission policy, The Missouri Review receives 12,000 manuscripts each year and is known for printing previously unpublished and emerging authors.
The Minerva Theatre is a studio theatre seating, at full capacity, 310. It is run as part of the adjacent Chichester Festival Theatre, located in Chichester, England, and was opened in 1989. The current artistic director is Daniel Evans.
Chichester is a cathedral city in West Sussex, in South-East England. It is the only city in West Sussex and is its county town. It has a long history as a settlement from Roman times and was important in Anglo-Saxon times. It is the seat of the Church of England Diocese of Chichester, with a 12th-century cathedral.
The Importance of Being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People is a play by Oscar Wilde. First performed on 14 February 1895 at the St James's Theatre in London, it is a farcical comedy in which the protagonists maintain fictitious personæ to escape burdensome social obligations. Working within the social conventions of late Victorian London, the play's major themes are the triviality with which it treats institutions as serious as marriage, and the resulting satire of Victorian ways. Some contemporary reviews praised the play's humour and the culmination of Wilde's artistic career, while others were cautious about its lack of social messages. Its high farce and witty dialogue have helped make The Importance of Being Earnest Wilde's most enduringly popular play.
Raymond William Stacy Burr was a Canadian American actor, primarily known for his title roles in the television dramas Perry Mason and Ironside. He was prominently involved in multiple charitable endeavors, such as working on behalf of the United Service Organizations, the USO.
John Carter of Mars is a fictional Virginian—a veteran of the American Civil War—transported to Mars and the initial protagonist of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom stories. His character is enduring, having appeared in various media since his 1912 debut in a magazine serial. The 2012 feature film John Carter marked the 100th anniversary of the character's first appearance.
Cloud Strife is a fictional character and the main protagonist of Square's 1997 role-playing video game Final Fantasy VII and several of its sequels and spin-offs. In Final Fantasy VII, Cloud is a mercenary claiming to be formerly of SOLDIER, a group of elite supersoldiers employed by the Shinra Electric Power Company, a megacorporation responsible for draining the life from the planet. Fighting against Shinra in the resistance group AVALANCHE, and driven by a feud with the primary antagonist, Sephiroth, Cloud learns to accept his troubled past and adapts to his role as a leader. Cloud reappears as the protagonist in the 2005 computer-animated sequel film, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, in which he fights a new threat to the world while dealing with a sickness that infected his body. He acts in a supporting role in other Compilation of Final Fantasy VII titles and is featured in several other games outside the Final Fantasy VII continuity. Additionally, he has been featured in Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. series, and the Kingdom Hearts series by Square Enix.
The Swan was a theatre in Southwark, London, England, built in 1595 on top of a previously standing structure, during the first half of William Shakespeare's career. It was the fifth in the series of large public playhouses of London, after James Burbage's The Theatre (1576) and Curtain (1577), the Newington Butts Theatre and Philip Henslowe's Rose (1587–88).
Misery is an American psychological horror thriller novel written by Stephen King and first published by Viking Press in 1987. The novel's narrative is based on the relationship of its two main characters – the popular writer Paul Sheldon and his psychotic fan Annie Wilkes. When Paul is seriously injured following a car accident, former nurse Annie brings him to her home, where Paul receives treatment and doses of pain medication. Gradually, Paul realizes that he is a prisoner and is forced to indulge his captor's whims.
Robert Preston Meservey was an American stage and film actor best remembered for originating the role of Professor Harold Hill in the 1957 musical The Music Man and the 1962 film adaptation; the film earned him his first of two Golden Globe Award nominations. Preston collaborated twice with filmmaker Blake Edwards, first in S.O.B. (1981) and again in Victor/Victoria (1982). For portraying Carroll "Toddy" Todd in the latter, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor at the 55th Academy Awards.
Sephiroth is a fictional character and main antagonist in the role-playing video game Final Fantasy VII developed by Square. Character designer Tetsuya Nomura conceived and designed Sephiroth as an antagonist to - and direct physical opposite of - the game's main character Cloud Strife. The character was voiced by voice actor Toshiyuki Morikawa in Japanese. In English, Sephiroth has been voiced by Lance Bass in Kingdom Hearts and George Newbern in all subsequent appearances, and will be voiced by Tyler Hoechlin in Final Fantasy VII Remake.
Unknown was an American pulp fantasy fiction magazine, published from 1939 to 1943 by Street & Smith, and edited by John W. Campbell. Unknown was a companion to Street & Smith's science fiction pulp, Astounding Science Fiction, which was also edited by Campbell at the time; many authors and illustrators contributed to both magazines. The leading fantasy magazine in the 1930s was Weird Tales, which focused on shock and horror. Campbell wanted to publish a fantasy magazine with more finesse and humor than Weird Tales, and put his plans into action when Eric Frank Russell sent him the manuscript of his novel Sinister Barrier, about aliens who own the human race. Unknown's first issue appeared in March 1939; in addition to Sinister Barrier, it included H. L. Gold's "Trouble With Water", a humorous fantasy about a New Yorker who meets a water gnome. Gold's story was the first of many in Unknown to combine commonplace reality with the fantastic.
Mordant's Need is a fantasy two-part book series by American writer Stephen R. Donaldson, comprising the novels The Mirror of Her Dreams (1986) and A Man Rides Through (1987).
Dark fantasy is a subgenre of fantasy literary, artistic, and cinematic works that incorporate darker and frightening themes of fantasy. It also often combines fantasy with elements of horror or has a gloomy, darker tone, or a sense of horror and dread.
"The Steadfast Tin Soldier" is a literary fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen about a tin soldier's love for a paper ballerina. The tale was first published in Copenhagen by C.A. Reitzel on 2 October 1838 in the first booklet of Fairy Tales Told for Children. New Collection. The booklet consists of Andersen's "The Daisy" and "The Wild Swans". The tale was Andersen’s first not based upon a folk tale or a literary model. "The Steadfast Tin Soldier" has been adapted to various media including ballet and animated film.
From the Ashes is a supplement for Dungeons & Dragons's World of Greyhawk campaign setting.
Arthur Lubin was an American film director and producer who directed several Abbott & Costello films, Phantom of the Opera (1943), the Francis the Talking Mule series and created the talking-horse TV series Mister Ed. A prominent director for Universal Pictures in the 1940s and 1950s, he is perhaps best known today as the man who gave Clint Eastwood his first contract in film.
You Never Know is a musical with a book by Rowland Leigh, adapted from the original European play By Candlelight, by Siegfried Geyer and Karl Farkas, with music by Cole Porter and Robert Katscher, lyrics by Cole Porter, additional lyrics by Leigh and Edwin Gilbert, directed by Leigh, and songs by others.
Samm-Art Williams is an American playwright and screenwriter, and a stage and film/TV actor. Much of his work concerns the African-American experience.
Tidus is a fictional video game character in Square Enix's Final Fantasy series. He was introduced as the protagonist of the role-playing video game, Final Fantasy X, in 2001 as a 17-year-old expert in the fictional sport of blitzball from the city of Zanarkand. After a mysterious creature named Sin attacks his hometown, Tidus is apparently transported to the world of Spira. Shortly after his arrival he meets Yuna, a mage and her guardians. The group will soon set out on a pilgrimage to destroy the creature which attacked Tidus' city; by joining them, Tidus hopes to find his way home. He has appeared in other video games, including the Final Fantasy X sequel Final Fantasy X-2, the Kingdom Hearts series, and several Square Enix crossover games.
Gateway Playhouse is a summer theatre located on the eastern edge of Bellport, Long Island. The street address is 215 South Country Road. It's the oldest of three professional theatres on the island and nationally recognized as one of the top ten summer theatres in the nation. Gateway Playhouse has been running for over sixty years. The theatre grounds encompass the Mainstage Theatre, Barn Theatre, scene shop, two rehearsal studios, three dorm-style housing units, a newly remodeled kitchen, costume shop, design office/studio, paint shop, box office, business office, various storage spaces, a recreation room and a large hedge-lined lawn with outdoor swimming pool. The Gateway Playhouse theatre seats 500 and its proscenium height is 34' holding 25 line sets for scenery and lights.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
