French Quarter at the Renaissance Asheville Hotel

Our friends and next-door neighbors at the Asheville Renaissance Hotel have come up with a great idea for dinner during the run of A Streetcar Named Desire. They've created a French Quarter inspired menu that will be available throughout the run of Streetcar. The prix fixe menu is a four course delight that begins with a gumbo and ends with beignets. And, if you make a reservation for dinner or lunch, parking at the Renaissance is free!

They're also donating $10 back from each dinner to us. Laissez les bon temps rouler!

How We Did That: The "Streetcar" Publicity Photo

One of the issues with which we constantly struggle is timing of the publicity photo. In order to meet the deadlines of print media - and especially the monthly magazines - we need to have a photo ready sometimes only days after we have a cast. At that point, we haven't had time to build or pull costumes, the set is only a distant vision, and we're usually in production on another show at that time. So we have to do what we do best: get creative!

For A Streetcar Named Desire, we wanted to capture a bit of drama in the publicity photo. We also wanted to share a little about the relationship between Blanche and Stanley - without sharing too much. Plus, we wanted to get across that it was a period piece (Streetcar takes place in 1947) that mainly takes place inside Stella and Stanley's apartment in the French Quarter in New Orleans. Not easy without a set and costumes!

Fortunately, everyone on the creative team was game to try something new. Theatre is certainly a collaborative art - and we're grateful that the collaboration extends off the stage as well!

Here's what we did:

And here's what we ended up with!

Photo by Tommy Propest

What do you think? Feel free to leave a comment below!

Thank you to everyone who helped make this happen: Jerry Crouch, Stephen Veltman, Deborah Austin, Jill Summers, Jennifer Russ, Dan Clancy, Thomas Propest, Craig Burgwardt, and Tommy Propest.