Richard Thomas to Star in Kennedy Center’s Blanche and Beyond

Emmy winner Richard Thomas will star in the Kennedy Center’s production of Blanche and Beyond, adapted and directed by Steve Lawson. The solo show will run September 24-26 in the Terrace Theater.

The work is adapted from the correspondences of Tennessee Williams between 1945 and 1957, and is a sequel to A Distant Country Called Youth, staged during the Center’s Tennessee Williams Explored festival in 2004. The show spans the peak of Williams’ career — from the Broadway triumphs of The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire through Summer and Smoke, Camino Real, and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and includes letters to individuals such as Elia Kazan, Jessica Tandy, Gore Vidal, his critics, lovers and family. Thomas and Lawson premiered the work at Manhattan Theatre Club in 2005.

Thomas’ Broadway credits include Democracy, A Naked Girl on the Appian Way, and Sunrise at Campobello. He won his Emmy in 1972 for playing the role of John Boy on The Waltons. Lawson currently serves as Executive Director of the Williamstown Film Festival and has long been associated with the Williamstown Theatre Festival.

For more information, visit www.kennedy-center.org.