The cast of Not About Nightingales; photos by Maria Baranova – Malik (first person on the right)
Showing in Weekend 1 and Weekend 2 and Weekend 3
Located at NikosStage Theater
2025 Season July 17 – August 3
1938. Hitler is invading Austria, Stalin is putting on show trials, America is lynching Black people, thousands are rotting in state prisons, the world is slowly climbing out of the Great Depression, Hollywood is filming The Wizard of Oz and auditioning for Gone with the Wind, all while a 27 year old Tennessee Williams is pulling all-nighters to finish a blistering homoerotic Prison Drama. He would never live to see a production of this early masterpiece. Not About Nightingales is a front row seat to America’s prison industrial complex whose atrocities are too often avoided and denied. Director Robert O’Hara (A Raisin in the Sun and Slave Play), will immerse us in this searing testament to what happens when we cage men, remove their humanity, and let them rot while the ‘outside world’ is run by rich, entitled gangsters.
Written by Tennessee Williams
Directed by Tony Award nominee Robert O’Hara (A Raisin in the Sun at Williamstown and Slave Play)
Malik James cast as Ollie along with featuring actors, Brian Geraghty as ‘Butch,’ Emmy Award nominee William Jackson Harper, Sydney Lemmon as ‘Eva,’ and SAG Award winner Chris Messina as ‘Warden Whalen’ in Williams’.
Not About Nightingales is “as exhilarating as theater gets….a rare encounter with a forgotten masterpiece that was way ahead of its time.”
– David Gordon, TheaterMania, July 21, 2025
“It is a long show, but it is worth its length in gold”
– Peter Bergman, Berkshires, July 25, 2025
“The Williams play for the moment”
– Helen Shaw, The New Yorker, July 25, 2025
“Not About Nightingales,” a “lost” Tennessee Williams play that is being given a blistering, smartly conceived, expertly acted production at Williamstown Theatre Festival, part of the historic festival’s W71 season.”
– Jeffrey Borak, Berkshire Eagle, July 22, 2025