The Glass Menagerie will be performed by the Shorter University Theatre Department on April 6, 7, and 8. The event will take place each day at 7:30 p.m. in the Callaway Theatre on the Shorter University campus.

The Glass Menagerie is a theatrical piece of distinct power, with some of Tennessee Williams’ most potent lyricism. It is a memory play as told to us by Tom Wingfield, a merchant marine looking back on the Depression years he spent with his overbearing Southern genteel mother, Amanda, and his physically disabled, cripplingly shy sister, Laura.

While Amanda strives to give her children a life beyond the decrepit St. Louis tenement they inhabit, she is herself trapped by the memory of her life past– a life of cotillions and suitors and wealth, now long gone. Tom, working at a shoe factory and paying the family’s rent, finds his own escape in drinking and going to the movies, while Laura pours her energy into caring for her delicate glass figurines.

Tom, pressured by his mother to help find Laura a suitable husband, invites an acquaintance from the factory to the apartment. This is a powerful possibility that pushes Amanda deeper into her obsessions and makes Laura even more vulnerable to shattering, exposed like the glass menagerie she treasures.

Williams’ intensely personal and brilliantly tender masterpiece exposes the complexity of our memories, and the ways in which we can never truly escape them.

Senior Communication major Daniel Farias is cast as Tom Wingfield, and sophomore Musical Theatre major Chelsie Burks will perform the role of Amanda Wingfield. Freshmen Musical Theatre majors Genna Williams and Blaise Phillips are cast as Laura Wingfield and The Gentleman Caller. The performance is directed by Sherrie Peterson.

Tickets can be reserved by contacting boxoffice@shorter.edu or (706) 233-7488. The cost is $15 for general admission and $10 for seniors and non-Shorter students. All Shorter University students and faculty receive free admission.

Founded in 1873, Shorter University is a Christ-centered, four-year liberal arts university committed to excellence in education. The Princeton Review annually includes Shorter University on its list of Best Southeastern Colleges. The university offers traditional bachelor’s degrees in 40 areas of study, online courses and degree programs, undergraduate programs for working adults, and master’s programs. Learn more about Shorter at www.shorter.edu.

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