Not About Nightingales

He wrote the play late in 1938, after reading in a newspaper about striking inmates of a Holmesburg, Pennsylvania prison in August 1938, who had been placed in "an isolation unit lined with radiators, where four died from temperatures approaching 150 degrees.".

There is also a love story, with the characters Eva, the new secretary at the prison, and Jim, a handsome inmate who works for the warden and is trying to get out on parole.

In February 1939, Williams submitted the play to the Group Theatre in New York City, but they rejected it.

[2] Not About Nightingales remained unperformed and unpublished until the late 1990s when Vanessa Redgrave made it her personal mission to track the play down.

It had its world premiere at the Alley Theatre in Houston in 1998 and was published the same year by New Directions, with a foreword by Redgrave.

Eva is there for a job interview as the new secretary for the Warden, while Mrs. Bristol is here to give her son Sailor Jack some baked goods she made just for him.

Eva begins to beg him for a job; however the warden doesn't want to hear it, saying "A business executive is not interested in your personal misfortunes."

Butch says that it's the poor food they are served everyday that is causing their pain, and suggests that they all go on a hunger strike.

Eva is answering phone calls left and right, while showing signs of stress during the process.

Jim opens up to Eva about how he can't stand the prison, the inmates, the Warden, and the guards.

At this moment, the Warden enters and tells Jim to take a file downstairs, thus leaving him alone with Eva once again.

This frightens Eva, getting her worked up, with additional tension from the fact that the Warden takes advantage of the situation by trying to seduce her.

Jim begins to devise a plan: they will meet in the southwest corner of the prison yard when it's dark out and attempt their escape together.

The act starts out in Klondike where the prisoners from Hall C are beginning to feel the heat from the steam boiler room.

Warden also starts to blackmail Eva and ends up making a deal with her, that he will mail the letter of recommendation for Jim's release if she sleeps with him.

When they have a minute to talk, Eva and Jim discuss their future outside of the prison, how they're in love, and the many places they plan to travel to.

The police arrive in the tower and grab Eva to take her to safety, bringing the play to an end.

[4] Talkin' Broadway called it "A World Class Production" and "A glimpse in the writing of Williams that would transform him from Tom to Tennessee".

[5] The next year it opened at the Circle in the Square Theatre on February 25, 1999, and was nominated for six Tony awards, including best play and best performance by a leading actor, Vanessa's brother Corin Redgrave as the Warden.