SOUTHERN BELLES

TWO ONE-ACT PLAYS BY TENNESSEE WILLIAMS

HEADLINING KING’S HEAD THEATRE’S  2019 QUEER SEASON

24 JULY – 24 AUGUST

NATIONAL PRESS NIGHT FRIDAY 26 JULY

Southern Belles, uniting two ground-breaking one-act plays by Tennessee Williams, will headline the King’s Head Theatre’s 2019 Queer Season, running from 24 July to 24 August. Southern Belles is directed by Jamie Armitage, co-director of the multi Olivier nominated musical Six.  

And Tell Sad Stories of the Deaths of Queens was never performed in Williams’s lifetime, owing to its openly gay characters.  Williams wrote the play in 1957, after his Broadway successes with Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.  It charts the heart-breaking encounter between an extraordinary queen and a troubled sailor in 1950’s New Orleans and explores the boundaries of love, passion and heartbreak.

And Tell Sad Stories of the Deaths of Queens will star Luke Mullins as Candy Delaney, George Fletcher as Karl and Michael Burrows as Alvin Krenning.

Luke Mullins’s theatre credits include Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (Old Vic), Waiting for Godot (Barbican) and The Maids (HOME). His film and television credits include Riot (Werner Film Prods), Holding the Man (Screen Australia), New Blood (BBC) and Blue Heelers (Southern Star). 

George Fletcher most recently appeared in Wood (Vault Festival). His other theatre credits include Frankenstein (Watermill Theatre / Wilton’s Music Hall) and 5 Guys Chillin’ (King's Head Theatre). He has also appeared in Call the Midwife (BBC).

Michael Burrows is making his London debut since recently graduating from Mountview Theatre School. His roles since graduating include Radio Caroline for Materlingua. 

Something Unspoken was written in 1958 and debuted as part of a double bill with Suddenly, Last Summer.  In Something Unspoken, tensions between a wealthy Southern spinster, Miss Cornelia Scott, and Grace, her loyal secretary of 15 years, boil over in a confrontation that exposes their complex, unacknowledged and romantic yearning for each other.

Something Unspoken will star Annabel Leventon as Cornelia Scott and Fiona Marr as Grace Lancaster.

Annabel Leventon previously performed at the King’s Head Theatre in 1976 in Spokesong by Stewart Parker, which later transferred into the West End. Her other theatre credits include Sheila in the original London production of Hair! (Shaftesbury Theatre), Sir Andrew Aguecheek in Twelfth Night and The Prioress in Comedy of Errors (Royal Shakespeare Company), Dot/Lowbutt in Olivier Award-winning musical Honk! The Ugly Duckling (National Theatre). Her film and television credits include Girls Night Out, Wimbledon, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Vera (ITV), and New Tricks (BBC). She is a founder member of the three-woman rock group Rock Bottom, on which the award-winning television series Rock Follies is based.

Fiona Marr’s theatre credits include Macbeth (Factory Theatre), Same Paige (Leicester Square Theatre & Colourhouse Theatre) A Dream of the Red Pavilions (Soho Theatre), All Men Are Whores: An Inquiry (Union Theatre) and Stitching (Soho Theatre). She recently appeared in Pitch Black Panacea (BFI Short Film). Her television credits include Sex and the City (HBO productions). Her radio credits include Crime Down Under: The Dragon Man (BBC Radio 3) The Searchers (BBC Radio 4) and Revenge Wears Prada- The Devil Returns(Woman’s Hour, BBC).

And Tell Sad Stories of the Deaths of Queens and Something Unspoken will be presented together for the very first time.  Poignant, unexpected and shimmeringly beautiful, Southern Belles are startling tales of love, loneliness and longing, which cast a light on the lives of those forced to hide their true feelings from society.  

Southern Belles will be designed by Sarah Mercadé, with lighting design by Ben Jacobs.

Southern Belles is co-produced by the King's Head Theatre and Making Productions.

Southern Belles opens on 24 July