Hurricane Blanche

This bird's got her own hot tin roof

The New York Times reports that the owners of the intellectual property rights for Tennessee Williams’ “Streetcar Named Desire” have no sense of humor. They've threatened legal action to stop performances of the one-man show “Blanche Survives Katrina in a FEMA Trailer Named Desire,” which is scheduled to run through March 15 at SoHo Playhouse.

The play, which won the Audience Choice Award at last year’s New York International Fringe Festival, is written and performed by Mark Sam Rosenthal, who is featured as a modern-day Blanche weathering Hurricane Katrina, the New Orleans Superdome and a subsequent job placement as a cashier at Popeye’s -- not to mention a series of unflattering blond wigs.

Lawyers for the University of the South (the rights owners) say Rosenthal's play and performances were “infringements on the university’s valuable intellectual property rights,” but Rosenthal is undeterred.

“I don’t think Tennessee Williams would approve of anything they’re doing in the name of protecting his work, not one bit,” Rosenthal said. “He was one starving artist, and I don’t think he’d do anything to hurt other starving artists.”

The play sounds hilariously inappropriate. (Has anyone seen it?) I may just have to get a ticket. I wonder if it comes with a biscuit.

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