I went out drinking that night in the company of friends that were mine,
not yours,
and when I returned after midnight, a telephone call let me know
that you had died at eleven.

—from “The Final Day of Your Life,” by Tennessee Williams

Appearing for the first time in print, Tennessee Williams’s moving poem “The Final Day of Your Life” describes the playwright’s last visit with Frank Merlo, his life companion of nearly fifteen years. Midcentury discrimination kept their loving, turbulent same-sex relationship out of the public eye, but in private Williams could pen his conflicted grief in straightforward language. Inside the issue, scholars explore a little-known painting by Williams and highlight new biographical material, and a treasure trove of essays on inventive stage productions show the playwright’s work reflecting and shaping cultural contexts on two continents.