'Desire' aims to inspire new fans.

• Author: Duckett, Richard
• Position: Living

Byline: Richard Duckett

"A Streetcar Named Desire''

7:30 p.m. April 10, The Hanover Theatre for the Performing Arts, 2 Southbridge St., Worcester. Tickets: $25. (877) 571-7469; www.the hanovertheatre.org.

7:30 p.m. April 11, 17 and 18; 2 p.m. April 12 and 19. Singh Performance Center at Alternatives Unlimited, 50 Douglas Road, Whitinsville. $25; $22 students and seniors (65 and older).

For reservations call Barbara Guertin at (508) 951-2665 or e-mail to Barbara@4thwallstagecompany.org

Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire'' is studied worldwide in high schools and colleges.

You can discover a lot as you pore over the pages, but there's no getting away from the fact that it was written as a play to be performed on the stage. Many Worcester Public Schools high school juniors have been reading a "A Streetcar Named Desire'' since early in the school year and discussing subjects that emerge from it such as the state of the American dream. But the play will come into very immediate focus for 800 juniors when they see a live production of it by the 4th Wall Stage Company over the course of two morning performances today and Friday at The Hanover Theatre for the Performing Arts in Worcester.

"I think it's a brilliant idea that's turned into a wonderful experience,'' said Barbara Guertin, managing director of 4th Wall and director of the "Streetcar'' production. The special performances are by an arrangement with Worcester Public Schools, The Hanover Theatre and 4th Wall. There will also be a public performance of "Streetcar'' at the Hanover Theatre at 7:30 p.m. April 10, and then 4th Wall will move the show to one of its regular bases, the Singh Performance Center at Alternatives Unlimited in Whitinsville, for performances April 11, 12, 17, 18 and 19. The cast of 25 includes students from Burncoat Senior High School and Aimee Kewley, who teaches theater at Burncoat and has acted with 4th Wall and other local theater companies.

Written by Williams in 1947 (the play won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1948), "A Streetcar Named Desire'' has two of the most memorable characters in American literature -- Blanche Dubois, a woman whose life is undermined by her romantic illusions, and Stanley Kowalski, Blanche's brutish brother-in-law, who sets out to destroy her fragile world when she visits her sister Stella in New Orleans.

"Blanche is one of most complex characters ever written,'' said Guertin. She could be said to represent a dissolving old...