Tiger Tail

Despite its name, Shakespeare Downtown does not limit itself to Shakespearean works. This summer, it returns to the Battery's Castle Clinton with a very rare staging of Tennessee Williams's 1978 play—adapted from his own screenplay for the 1956 film Baby Doll, which was itself inspired by a pair of one-acts he wrote ten years earlier. Like the movie, the play centers on the owner of a failing cotton gin in rural Mississippi, his teenage bride in a not-yet-consummated marriage, her dotty aunt and his principal rival in the cotton business. Geoffrey Horne directs the production, whose cast includes Billie Andersson, Juan Pablo Toro, Elizabeth Ruf and Saundra Jones.