Thomas Keith Archives - The Play Podcast

Thomas Keith

by Douglas Schatz | Mar 14, 2023 | Contributor

Thomas Keith

Professor Thomas Keith teaches theater and acting at Pace University in New York.

He is a consulting editor for New Directions Publishing where he has edited the Tennessee Williams titles since 2002, and is the scholarly editor for three volumes of Williams plays, A House Not Meant to Stand, Now the Cats with Jeweled Claws, and The Magic Tower & Other One-Act Plays.

Co-editor of The Letters of Tennessee Williams and James Laughlin, Thomas edited Love, Christopher Street—LGBTQ essays about New York City—and his writing has appeared in American Theater Magazine, Gay & Lesbian Review, and Studies in Scottish Literature.

Thomas has served as dramaturge for the Sundance Institute Theater Lab, La MaMa E.T.C., Mabou Mines, and the Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival.

Podcast Episode(s)

060 - A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams

Recommended Play(s)

Thomas recommended Clyde’s by Lynn Nottage, and Downstate by Bruce Norris.

060 – A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams

by Douglas Schatz | Mar 14, 2023 | Podcast Episodes

Paul Mescal as Stanley and
Patsy Ferran as Blanche
at the Almeida Theatre, London 2023
Photo by Marc Brenner

060 – A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams

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A Streetcar Named Desire is one of the towering masterpieces of American theatre, distinguished for its frank depiction of sexual compulsion, its lyrical language, and its poignant portrait of mental fragility, as well as the bitter clash between two of the greatest dramatic characters – the damaged and defiant Blanche Dubois and the unrestrained masculine power that is Stanley Kowalski.

Streetcar as the play is familiarly known, opened on Broadway in December 1947 with Jessica Tandy as Blanche, and a virtual unknown at the time, Marlon Brando, as Stanley. The first UK production was in October 1949, directed by Laurence Olivier and starring his wife Vivien Leigh as Blanche, who would of course go on to reprise the role with Brando in the famous 1951 film.

The play has been revived many times on stage and on the small screen, attracting renowned actors to its lead roles. A new production at the Almeida theatre in London, directed by Rebecca Frecknall, with Patsy Ferran as Blanche and Paul Mescal as Stanley, opened to rave reviews at the end of last year, and its transfer to the West End this month is already sold out.

I’m delighted to be able to devote an episode of the podcast to this giant of a play, and privileged to be joined by an expert of Tennessee Williams, Professor Thomas Keith. Professor Keith has edited more than twenty of Williams’s titles for New Directions Publishing over the past two decades. He is also the co-editor of The Letters of Tennessee Williams and James Laughlin, and the resident dramaturge at the Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival. He teaches acting and theatre at Pace University in New York.

Thomas Keith

Professor Thomas Keith teaches theater and acting at Pace University in New York.

Thomas has served as dramaturge for the Sundance Institute Theater Lab, La MaMa E.T.C., Mabou Mines, and the Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival.

Recommended Play

Thomas recommended Clyde’s by Lynn Nottage, and Downstate by Bruce Norris.

We have footnotes for this episode …

The Footnotes to our episode on A Streetcar Named Desire include more on the autobiographic sources for the play, observations on the character of Blanche’s young gay husband, and on the social context in the time the play was written.

Footnotes for Patrons

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The Texts

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115 – The Dance of Death by August Strindberg

Oct 6, 2026 | Podcast Episodes

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August Strindberg’s The Dance of Death is set in a remote army base on the coast of Sweden, where an army captain and his wife are trapped together in an unhappy marriage. The captain, bitter at his lack of promotion, and his wife, frustrated at having been forced to give up her career as an actress, occupy their empty hours tearing into each other in a brutal dance of mutual cruelty.

Strindberg’s scorching portrait of marital strife was written in 1900, but has had a lasting influence. Arthur Miller dubbed Strindberg, “the mad inventor of modern theatre”, and echoes of his unflinching dissection of marital discord can be seen in the plays of Edward Albee, Tennessee Williams, Eugene O’Neill, and John Osborne.

Sir Richard Eyre adapted and directed a wonderful production of Dance of Death at the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond upon Thames earlier this year, and I am delighted that Sir Richard joins me in this episode to guide us through Strindberg’s blistering onslaught on marriage.

114 – Love’s Labour’s Lost by William Shakespeare

Sep 22, 2026 | Podcast Episodes

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William Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost is described on the title page in the first publication of its text in 1598 as “A Pleasant Conceited Comedie.” I imagine that the epithets were intended to highlight the play’s courtly aesthetic, its frothy merry-go-round of courtship, and above all perhaps, its ostentatiously intricate word play. For it is a play rich in the love and perils of language.

I am joined to assay Shakespeare’s conceited comedy by the Artistic Director of the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond upon Thames, Tom Littler. In the summer of 2026 Tom adapted and directed a magical double bill of Shakespeare, producing Love’s Labour’s Lost and Much Ado About Nothing in repertory, and staging them both ‘en plein air’.

113 – Arcadia by Tom Stoppard

Aug 24, 2026 | Podcast Episodes

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Tom Stoppard’s 1993 play, Arcadia, is viewed by many as his finest play, renowned for the breadth of its intellectual interrogations and its formal invention. The play is a structural masterpiece of ideas, as well as a teasing detective story, joyous comedy, and emotionally rich exploration of love and loss.

As we record this episode a wonderful new production of Arcadia is playing at the Duke of York’s theatre in London’s West End, following its acclaimed run at the Old Vic theatre earlier this year. I am delighted to share the challenge and the pleasure of exploring Stoppard’s dazzling drama with the director of the new production, Carrie Cracknell.