A new Columbus foundation seeking to honor the city”s most famous native has appointed its leader.
During its first official meeting, the Tennessee Williams Tribute Committee installed Mississippi University for Women theater instructor Brook Hanemann as the director of its fledgling nonprofit foundation.
“Because this is the town of Williams” birth, we will always be looked to by scholars,” Hanemann told the committee Thursday in Rent Auditorium on the MUW campus. “I want to give them something to look at.”
For the past eight years the Columbus Arts Council has helmed the Tennessee Williams Tribute Festival, but as committee chair Brenda Caradine explained, the nonprofit foundation was created to write grants and seek outside funds. Hanemann will make the Foundation the focus of her Ph. D. work at work at Louisiana State University, while Caradine will continue to manage the festival.
“It”s the logical step of becoming more what we want to be to the rest of the world and Columbus,” Caradine said.
Hanemann was thinking the same thing. An actor by birth and trade, Hanemann has performed in Williams” plays most of her life. A former director of the Orlando Fringe Festival, which included 50 theater productions running back-to-back simultaneously at 10 outdoor theater venues, she hopes to bring the same energy to Columbus to honor Williams.
Hanemann presented an outline of goals for the September festival to the committee. Her vision includes professional productions of Williams” plays performed by local and visiting artists, increased funding through grant writing, a scholarship in Williams” name at MUW and a featured archive of Williams” material.
“When people walk into our library, there should be an unmistakable presence,” she said of the proposed archive. Mona Vance, archivist for the Columbus Public Library, signed on to the archive project.
A group of approximately 20 members comprise the tribute committee. They include teachers, students, business owners and lawyers. Hanemann says their practical skills will come in as handy as their artistry.
“You can be as passionate as you want to be, but if you”re not business-minded, you”re all blood and no bones.”
New features planned for this year”s tribute include a “Stella” Shouting Contest, an homage to the famous scene in “A Streetcar Named Desire.” A “Streetcar Run” race is planned for next year.
The shouting contest idea is borrowed from other Williams festivals throughout the world, but Hanemann freely admits she”d like to emulate successful aspects of festivals in Clarksdale, New Orleans and France to draw similar crowds.
Columbus” Williams Tribute festival has traditionally drawn influential scholars to Williams” birthplace to discuss everything from his poetry to his play writing.
Recent MUW theater graduate Melissa Werner, of Gautier, said that, thanks to the festival, she knows “more about Tennessee Williams than most of my high school teachers.”
“Going to the panels opened up opportunities for me to share my passion. That would not have been possible without the festival,” she said.
Members of the board include Hanemann, Caradine, Claude Simpson, George Courington, Marleen Hansen, Kate Roberts, Mona Vance, Marthalie Porter, Chris Hannon, Beverly Norris, Dr. Jim DelPrince, Steve Pieschel, Josie Shoemake, Al Holen, Gloria Herriott, Kathy Howell, Nancy Carpenter, Rus Blackwell, Dr. Kenneth Holditch of New Orleans, and John Brady, legal counsel.
Jason Browne was previously a reporter for The Dispatch.
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