[citation needed] Tennessee Williams attended a workshop of several James Purdy stories adapted by Uecker and hired him as a general assistant and intermittent editor.
Uecker later directed the premiere of The Chalky White Substance, pairing the short play with The Travelling Companion under the collective title Williams Guignol.
Speaking to CBS New York, on the 30th anniversary of the playwright's death, CUNY Professor Annette J. Saddik said Williams had been taking Seconal – a barbiturate derivative – to help him sleep, and also had been drinking the night he died.
[citation needed] In 2010, Uecker spoke at the grand opening of the newly renovated Tennessee Williams Welcome Center in downtown Columbus, Mississippi.
Their first collaboration was on the production of two of Purdy's short plays Heatstroke and Souvenir under the collective title Sun of the Sleepless, featuring Laurence Fishburne and Sheila Dabney.
[citation needed] Uecker coached and/or directed James Gandolfini, Holly Hunter, Brett Butler Laurence Fishburne, Melissa Gilbert, Sam Trammell, and Jason Hale.