Fisher Center Co-Production of Suddenly Last Summer Featured in WRTI
Photo by Maria Baranova
WRTI’s Arts Desk published an interview with Courtney Brian, the composer of a new interpretation of Tennessee Williams’ one-act play Suddenly Last Summer. Brian worked on the opera with director Daniel Fish and Gideon Lester, artistic director and chief executive of the Fisher Center, where it premiered this summer. The opera, a co-commission of the Fisher Center LAB, also had three performances at Opera Philadelphia at the end of October.
In the wide-ranging interview, Brian told WRTI’s Nate Chinen about her “immersive” process for developing new music for the material, through visits to New Orleans, Mississippi, and France, among other locations relevant to Tennessee Williams’s life and the southern gothic literary genre. Brian’s history also includes a long-standing relationship with Lester: the two met at Columbia University, and Lester approached Brian with the idea of developing the play shortly after joining the Fisher Center as artistic director.
“It was one of those cosmic moments,” said Brian. “When we did one of our early workshops with me, Gideon and Daniel, we met in New Orleans, and one of the things we did was visit the house together. It made a lot come alive, because in the descriptions Tennessee Williams wrote, you could tell how much the house was an inspiration. I had a chance later to go back in the house and just sit there and think about the music, and it helped just to be there.”
Post Date: 10-28-2026
In the wide-ranging interview, Brian told WRTI’s Nate Chinen about her “immersive” process for developing new music for the material, through visits to New Orleans, Mississippi, and France, among other locations relevant to Tennessee Williams’s life and the southern gothic literary genre. Brian’s history also includes a long-standing relationship with Lester: the two met at Columbia University, and Lester approached Brian with the idea of developing the play shortly after joining the Fisher Center as artistic director.
“It was one of those cosmic moments,” said Brian. “When we did one of our early workshops with me, Gideon and Daniel, we met in New Orleans, and one of the things we did was visit the house together. It made a lot come alive, because in the descriptions Tennessee Williams wrote, you could tell how much the house was an inspiration. I had a chance later to go back in the house and just sit there and think about the music, and it helped just to be there.”
Post Date: 10-28-2026