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Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

"One of the most successful plays of our time...a play of tremendous dramatic impact...enormous theatrical power."

New York Post

"A gripping and intensely moving play...Mr. Williams is the man of our time who comes closest to hurling the actual blood and bone of life onto the stage."

The New York Times

More information

Description

  • Full Length Play
  • Drama
  • 120 minutes

  • Time Period: 1950s
  • Target Audience: Teen (Age 14 - 18), Adult
  • Set Requirements: Interior Set
  • Cautions: Smoking, Alcohol, Strong Language, Mild Adult Themes

  • Performance Group:
  • Large Stage, Dinner Theatre, Community Theatre, High School/Secondary, Professional Theatre, Reader's Theatre, College Theatre / Student

  • Accolades:
  • Winner! 1955 Pulitzer Prize in Drama
In a plantation house, a family celebrates the sixty-fifth birthday of 'Big Daddy', as they sentimentally dub him. The mood is somber, despite the festivities, because a number of evils poison the gaiety: greed, sins of the past and desperate, clawing hopes for the future spar with one another at the knowledge that Big Daddy is dying slowly makes the rounds.

Maggie, Big Daddy's daughter-in-law, wants to give him the news that she's finally become pregnant by Big Daddy's favorite son, Brick, but Brick won't cooperate in Maggie's plans and prefers to stay in a mild alcoholic haze the entire length of his visit. Maggie has her own interests at heart in wanting to become pregnant, of course, but she also wants to make amends to Brick for an error in judgement that nearly cost her her marriage. 

Swarming around Maggie and Brick are their intrusive, conniving relatives, all eager to see Maggie put in her place and Brick tumbled from his position of most-beloved son.

By evening's end, Maggie's ingenuity, fortitude and passion will set things right, and Brick's love for his father, never before expressed, will retrieve him from his path of destruction and return him, helplessly, to Maggie's loving arms.
REVIEWS:

"One of the most successful plays of out time... a play of tremendous dramatic impact... enormous theatrical power."

New York Post

"...Williams has fashioned his most compelling characters."

New York Journal-American

"This is a gripping and intensely moving play, a play that can hold its own with anything written in the post O'Neill American theater... Brilliant scenes, scenes of sudden and lashing dramatic power, break open... There is, indeed, not one moment in the evening when the stinging accuracy of Mr. Williams' ear for human speech is not compellingly in evidence... Mr. Williams is the man of our time who comes closest to hurtling the actual blood and bone of life onto the stage; he is also the man whose prose comes closest to being as incisive natural poetry."

 The New York Times

Premiere Production: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof was first presented by The Playwrights' Company on Broadway at the Morosco Theatre in New York City on march 24, 1955. It was directed by Elia Kazan.

Characters

  • Casting: 8M, 5F, 4M or F

LACEY
SOOKEY
MARGARET
BRICK
MAE - sometimes called "Sister Woman"
GOOPER - sometimes called "Brother Man"
BIG MAMA
DIXIE
BUSTER
SONNY
TRIXIE
BIG DADDY
REVEREND TOOKER
DOCTOR BAUGH
DAISY
BRIGHTIE
SMALL

Available Material

Name Price
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof Script Order Now

In a plantation house, a family celebrates the sixty-fifth birthday of 'Big Daddy', as they sentimentally dub him. The mood is somber, despite the festivities, because a number of evils poison the gaiety: greed, sins of the past and desperate, clawing hopes for the future spar with one another at the knowledge that Big Daddy is dying slowly makes the rounds.

Maggie, Big Daddy's daughter-in-law, wants to give him the news that she's finally become pregnant by Big Daddy's favorite son, Brick, but Brick won't cooperate in Maggie's plans and prefers to stay in a mild alcoholic haze the entire length of his visit. Maggie has her own interests at heart in wanting to become pregnant, of course, but she also wants to make amends to Brick for an error in judgement that nearly cost her her marriage. 

Swarming around Maggie and Brick are their intrusive, conniving relatives, all eager to see Maggie put in her place and Brick tumbled from his position of most-beloved son.

By evening's end, Maggie's ingenuity, fortitude and passion will set things right, and Brick's love for his father, never before expressed, will retrieve him from his path of destruction and return him, helplessly, to Maggie's loving arms.

$24.95

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