Adapted and directed by Michael Clark Haney, the reading will feature the talents of Ruby Dee, Julie White and Richard Thomas. Lament played a successful five-month engagement at the Laurelgrove Theatre in Los Angeles before being invited to headline New Orleans' Tennessee Williams Literary Festival in March. The reading is being presented by Playwrights Kitchen Ensemble and New Directions at the John Houseman Studio Theatre. Show time is 3 PM. The Houseman Studio Theatre is located in Manhattan at 450 West 42nd Street.

Born Thomas Lanier Williams on March 26, 1911, Tennessee Williams became one of the most respected playwrights in American theatre history. His first bona fide Broadway success was the 1945 premiere of The Glass Menagerie. Two years later his production of A Streetcar Named Desire earned the young playwright both the Pulitzer Prize and the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award. Among his many other works are The Rose Tattoo, Camino Real, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Sweet Bird of Youth, Night of the Iguana, Orpheus Descending, Not About Nightingales and Suddenly, Last Summer. Williams died August 13, 1983. The Kennedy Center is currently presenting a spring and summer devoted to the works of Williams, which includes Five by Tenn, April 21-May 9; A Streetcar Named Desire, May 8-30; A Distant Country Called Youth, June 11-13; Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, June 12-July 4; and The Glass Menagerie, July 17-Aug. 8.