Tennessee Williams, American playwright and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, left his estate to The University of the South, familiarly known as Sewanee, as a memorial to his maternal grandfather, the Reverend Walter E. Dakin, who studied at Sewanee’s School of Theology in 1895. This generous gift, which came to the University in 1996, included the copyrights to the plays, screenplays, poems, letters and stories written by Mr. Williams.
The Walter E. Dakin Memorial Fund is used to support writers and encourage creative writing at Sewanee as contemplated by Mr. Williams’ will. More than 500 writers have been provided financial assistance to attend the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. The Fund also supports scholarships for students who wish to pursue creative writing and fellowships which are granted annually to budding playwrights or authors who attend the Conference. Those fellows include Ann Patchett, Claire Messud, Tony Early, and Mark Richard. The Tennessee Williams Center houses the University’s theatre department and a portion of the Fund supports the department and the theatrical productions it mounts in the Center. Those productions include works of Tennessee Williams Fellows and Mr. Williams’ own plays. The Fund also supports the creative writing program in the College of Arts and Sciences, and The Sewanee Review, America’s oldest continuously published literary quarterly. Because the income stream from the licensing of the copyrights will stop as the copyrights expire, the University has set aside a portion of the Fund as permanent endowment thus insuring that Mr. Williams’ gift will benefit writers for years to come.
Marquitte Starkey, Vice President and General Counsel to the University, is responsible for overseeing the management of the Williams’ copyrights. She may be reached at mcstarke@sewanee.edu.
A license from the University is required to perform or publish in whole or in part any of Williams’ works.
Performance license information:
Casarotto Ramsay & Associates Limited
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Publication license information:
Georges Borchardt, Inc.
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New York, NY 10022
T: 212 753 5785
www.gbagency.com
