Lit Moon Turns 25 with ‘Glass Menagerie’
John Blondell, Westmont theater arts professor, celebrates the 25th anniversary of Santa Barbara-based Lit Moon Theatre Company by presenting Tennessee Williams’ American masterpiece “The Glass Menagerie” Sept. 2-3 at 7:30 p.m. and Sept. 4 at 4 p.m. in Westmont’s Porter Theatre. Tickets, which cost $20 general admission and $15 for students, seniors and children, are available online.
The cast features Lit Moon members Victoria Finlayson as Amanda, Stan Hoffman as Tom, alumna Paige Tautz ’14 as Laura, and alumnus Chris Wagstaffe ’14 as the Gentleman Caller. Scenography and costumes are done by Danila Korogodsky. Alumnus Jonathan Hicks ’04 is the lighting and technical director. Westmont junior Anna Telfer is stage manager.
About an early 20th century St. Louis family and the tensions that break it apart, “The Glass Menagerie” is one of the iconic dramas of the American stage, and one of Tennessee Williams’ most famous plays.
“The play blends humor with pathos, fragility with cruelty, and the personal with the mythic in a way unique to American drama,” says Blondell, who began teaching at Westmont in 1988 and co-founded and directed Lit Moon in 1991. “It’s that unique and nearly indescribable thing we term a masterpiece.”
Based on a 1943 short story “The Girl in Glass,” Williams wrote the play about his own family. His mother was Amanda; his fragile and unstable sister Rose was Laura; and he was Tom (Williams’ given name was Thomas), the aspiring writer. The inciting incident for writing the play most likely occurred in 1943, when Williams’ mother had Rose lobotomized while Williams was away from home for a short time. The play opened in New York in March 1945, became an instant success, and catapulted Williams to international stardom.