Audra McDonald-Led A Streetcar Named Desire to Launch New Season at Williamstown Theatre Festival

Six-time Tony winner Audra McDonald will headline a new mounting of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire this summer at Williamstown Theatre Festival. McDonald will play Blanche DuBois in the production, set to open the Berkshires theater's new season, which will also include five world premieres and a new staging of Anna Ziegler's Photograph 51 directed by five-time Tony winner Susan Stroman.

Recent Slave Play helmer Robert O'Hara will direct the new staging of Streetcar (set to run from June 30-July 19), which will also star two-time Tony nominee Bobby Cannavale and Carla Gugino. Set in New Orleans, the classic play follows Blanche (McDonald), haunted by her past, as she seeks refuge with Stella (Gugino) and Stanley (Cannavale) and begins to wrestle with the nature of her sister's husband, her sister's denial and her own unraveling mind.

Sanaz Toossi's world premiere play Wish You Were Here (July 1-12) will next appear at Williamstown. Gaye Taylor Upchurch will direct the production, set to star Nikki Massoud and Marjan Neshat. Set over the course of 14 years, the play follows Nazanin (Neshat) and her friends, who are on the brink of adulthood. As they prepare for a wedding, outside their living room the Iranian Revolution simmers and threatens to alter the course of their lives.

Next up will be Shakina Nayfack's world premiere play Chonburi International Hotel & Butterfly Club (July 15-25), to be directed by Laura Savia. Nayfack will also star in the production, alongside Kate Bornstein and Annie Golden. The play centers on a vibrant, international group of transgender women who band together at a hotel in Thailand to confront the challenges and joys of gender confirmation surgery. Despite the group's warm welcome, Kina (Nayfack) prepares for her life-altering operation all alone. But a wise couple (Bornstein and Golden), a caring nurse and a karaoke-loving bellhop may be exactly who she needs to ignite her truest sense of self.

Williamstown will next present Cult of Love (July 22-August 2), a world premiere play by Leslye Headland, directed by Trip Cullman. Two-time Tony nominee Kate Burton will head a cast that will also include Michael Esper, Paige Gilbert, Rebecca Henderson, Chris Lowell, Taylor Schilling and Miriam Silverman. The play centers on Ginny (Burton) and Bill, who have raised their family with love, music and Jesus. Every Christmas they welcome home their adult children with carols, figgy pudding and a vat of Manhattans. But the holiday sours when their devout daughter Diana (Schilling) unsettles her secular siblings (Esper and Henderson) with her evangelicalism.

The world premiere musical Row (July 30-August 9) is next on deck at Williamstown. Featuring a book by Daniel Goldstein and a score by Dawn Landes, inspired by Tori Murden McClure's A Pearl in the Storm, the musical centers on Tori, who aims to be the first woman to row solo across the Atlantic. As a child, she raised her younger brother Lamar, defending him against discrimination and neighborhood bullies. Now, with nothing but her body and a hand-built boat, she squares off with her own tormentor: the ocean. Tyne Rafaeli will direct.

Williamstown's docket will next include a new production of Ziegler's Photograph 51 (August 6-23), directed by Stroman. Set in 1951, the play follows chemist Rosalind Franklin as she works relentlessly in her King's College London lab, closing in on a major discovery that could unlock the mysteries of the DNA molecule. Undermined by her colleague Maurice Wilkins, she struggles to compete with rival team Watson and Crick as pressure intensifies to produce results.

Closing out the Williamstown season will be Animals (August 12-23), a world premiere by Stacy Osei-Kuffour, directed by Whitney White. The play follows Lydia and Henry, whose dinner guests are about to arrive when Henry's spontaneous marriage proposal threatens to burn the evening to a crisp. Wine bottles and years of unspoken tensions are uncorked, and, before the evening is through, Lydia must confront her long-held fears and feelings if she's going to commit to a future with Henry.

Further casting and creative team members for the 2020 Williamstown Theater Festival season will be announced at a later date.

Since 1955, Williamstown Theatre Festival has brought America's finest actors, directors, designers and playwrights to the Berkshires. WTF productions that have transferred to Broadway include recent stagings of The Rose Tattoo and The Sound Inside and the current Broadway production of Grand Horizons.