Summer and Smoke - Stage Performances

Stage Performances

On 6 October 1948, Summer and Smoke received its first performance at the Music Box Theatre, New York City, in a production staged by Margo Jones and designed by Jo Mielziner with Tod Andrews, Margaret Phillips, Monica Boyar, and Anne Jackson. The play ran for 102 performances and, at the time, represented a downturn in popularity for Williams following his successful previous play A Streetcar Named Desire, even though it explored similar themes.

In 1952, Geraldine Page played the lead role in a revival directed by José Quintero at the newly founded Circle in the Square Theatre in downtown New York (the theater was in its earlier Sheridan Square Playhouse location). Her legendary performance is credited with the beginning of the Off-Broadway movement, putting both Page and Quintero on the map and vindicating the play itself. Page starred in an hour-long adaptation of the play on the radio series Best Plays in 1953 opposite Richard Kiley (recordings of which still exist). She would also to portray Alma Winemiller in the 1961 film version opposite Laurence Harvey earning an Academy Award nomination (as would Una Merkel playing her mother).

The Broadway debut of the revised version titled "The Eccentricities of a Nightingale" was staged in 1976. The production was directed by Edwin Sherin, scenery William Ritman, costumes Theoni V. Aldredge, lighting Marc B. Weiss, original music Charles Gross, produced in conjunction with Marc W. Jacobs, production stage manager Henry Banister, and press Seymour Krawitz, Patricia McLean Krawitz, and Louise Ment. The show starred Betsy Palmer (Alma), Shepperd Strudwick (Rev. Winemiller), Grace Carney (Mrs. Winemiller), Nan Martin (Mrs. Buchanan), Peter Blaxill (Roger Doremus), Jen Jones (Mrs. Bassett), Patricia Guinan (Rosemary), W. P. Dremak (Vernon), Thomas Stechschulte (Traveling Salesman), and David Selby as Dr. Buchanan. the production ran for 24 performances at the Morosco Theatre.

In 1996, the play was revived at the Criterion Center Stage Right in New York, in a production directed by David Warren, with Harry Hamlin and Mary McDonnell. Laila Robins and Amanda Plummer have been notable Almas in regional theatre productions.

London had to wait nearly sixty years for the premiere of Summer and Smoke. It opened at the Apollo Theatre on 17 October 2006. The production, directed by Adrian Noble and starring Rosamund Pike and Chris Carmack, first opened at the Nottingham Playhouse in September, prior to its London transfer. It closed ten weeks short of its planned sixteen-week run due to disappointing ticket sales.

In January 2007, the Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, New Jersey presented a revival starring Amanda Plummer and Kevin Anderson, directed by Michael Wilson; and, in May 2008, the Off-Broadway group The Actors Company Theatre (TACT) presented a revival of the 1964 revision of the play, The Eccentricities of a Nightingale, which received a favorable notice from The New York Times.