The Tennessee Williams Festival welcomed hundreds of tourist to town from across the nation this past weekend to take part in over 30 lectures, forums, plays and parties.
The event also saw the community recognize three people who played a key role in the creation and growth of the event that celebrated its 30th anniversary this year. Panny Mayfield, Dr. Vivian Presley and Ann J. Abadie were honored for their work with the festival at opening ceremonies Thursday at the Tennessee Williams Park on Court Street.
“It takes lots of people to create and run an event like the Mississippi Delta Tennessee Williams Festival, but it has seen three people play a major role in its development, said Stuart Rockoff, Executive Director of the Mississippi Humanities Council. “Panny Mayfield, Dr. Vivian Presley and Ann Abadie have worked hard to make this one of the premier literary festivals in the state. The Mississippi Humanities Council is glad to support them and this event.”
Mayfield, a Clarksdale journalist/photographer, was a part-time consultant for the Mississippi Arts Commission at the time the festival first formed. She was quick to point to help from Dr. Presley in writing a grant that helped sustain the event. Ann J. Abadie is former associate director of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi played a key roll in growing the event over 30 years.
The festival began on the grounds of the Coahoma County Higher Education Center/Cutrer Mansion on Thursday, at 10:30 a.m. with a hot tamale demonstration, music by Alice Hasen and Lucious Spiller, and talks by Blues City Cultural Center’s artistic director, Levi Frazier and well-known writer and newspaperman, Curtis Wilkie.
Other notable highlights of the 2022 MS Delta Tennessee Williams Festival included a tour through Clarksdale's historic district and other areas; a MDTW festival reunion and a look at festivals past at the Tennessee Williams park; a Delta Dinner Party in the Norman Brown Commons Building on Thursday night, and a movie screening of the acclaimed 1958 film Cat on a Hot Tin Roof on the lawn of the Cutrer Mansion.
The weekend wrapped up Saturday with the High School Student Drama Competition and the signature Porch Plays in the historic district.
