Swine Palace’s George Judy talks about producing a lesser-known Tennessee Williams play

The legacy of Tennessee Williams lives on in the hearts of many. The American playwright’s work, from The Glass Menagerie to A Streetcar Named Desire to Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, has connected with people all across the globe.

However, it’s one of his lesser-known plays that connects Williams’ life to New Orleans. The autobiographical Vieux Carré is an underrated gem, touching on the lives of residents in a French Quarter rooming house. Long-tenured Swine Palace artistic director George Judy is leading a production of Vieux Carré that opens April 13 in the Reilly Theatre. We talked to Judy about directing one of Williams’ works.

Why do you think this is an important play to put on in Baton Rouge?

It’s one of the last plays that [Williams] wrote. It’s a play that’s not done as often as some of his others, but it’s of particular interest to us because it deals with a time at the very beginning of his career when he lived in New Orleans. The people he encountered there really shaped a lot of his major work over the rest of his life.

Tell us about your own connection to the play.

When I was a relatively young student beginning my career in the theater, I saw the original Broadway production of Vieux Carré in New York. It was not a particularly stellar production. I just happened to be there when Tennessee Williams was actually in the audience [he had been a consultant on the production]. I sat and watched probably our greatest American playwright watching his production of this play, and not a very good production. Sitting in that theater and seeing this play in the presence of Tennessee Williams has always kept it in my imagination and has brought me back to it now with this great joy in trying to find a way to make the play work for audiences here in Louisiana.

How do you direct a lesser-known play in a way that people can feel a connection to it?

Well, the language itself and the characters are really rich, and I think our audiences are sensitive to the language of Tennessee Williams and the world of New Orleans. It has a great emotional, poetic pull to it, just because of where it’s set. It’s people and characters we’ll recognize from our own Southern heritage and history.

Vieux Carré begins April 13 at 7:30 p.m. in the Reilly Theatre and closes April 24. Ticket prices vary. swinepalace.org