Not About Nightingales was given its world premier on March 5, 1998 at the Royal National Theatre, London, England. It was directed by Trevor Nunn; set designed by Richard Hoover; costumes designed by Fizz Jones; lighting by Chris Parry and sound by Christopher Shutt. Not About Nightingales is an early play by the 27 year old Tom Williams and the first play to carry his signature pen name, Tennessee. Written in 1938 and based on an actual newspaper story the play follows the events of a prison scandal which shocked America when convicts leading a hunger strike were locked in a steam-heated cell and roasted to death. Williams later said: "I have never written anything since that could compete with its violence and horror." Its sympathetic treatment of a Black character and of a transvestite might have kept the play suppressed and unproduced during its own time. But its flashes of lyricism and compelling dialogue presage the great plays Williams was yet to write.
Not About Nightingales shows the young Williams as a political writer, passionate about social injustice and reflecting the plight of outcasts in Depression America. The stylistic influences of European Expressionism, radical American theatre of the 1930s and popular cinema make this a unique play among the group of so-called forgotten plays of Tennessee Williams