Producing the Tennessee Williams classic is the realisation of a long-held dream for visiting United States director Jef Hall-Flavin.
"This play is really amazing. Things become classics for a reason and it's a real thrill to find out why," he says.
A Streetcar Named Desire won Williams the 1948 Pulitzer Prize and helped propel actors Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh to stardom.
"It has a universal theme and explores taboos. It's about a woman's inability to cope with her own desires and how she represses her sexual needs and how it drives her mad.
"Tennessee Williams feels the physical side of love is love and is just as important as the romantic side of love. Your body doesn't lie to you about affection and desire.
"We're trying a lot of those themes out in the play," Hall-Flavin says.
The director is a big fan of the playwright and was recently appointed executive director of the Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theatre Festival in Massachussetts.
"I love Tennessee Williams and I've always wanted to explore his master works, like The Glass Menagerie, The Rose Tattoo and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. They're all great plays."
Hall-Flavin revealed Fortune manager Janice Marthen had also encouraged the production.
"Streetcar is a great favourite of Janice's. She's always wanted to do it," he says.
"It's a monumental undertaking. It has a large cast and it's going to be a great production."
A Streetcar Named Desire is the second play Hall-Flavin has produced at the Fortune.
The Minnesota-based director returns to Dunedin following his production of the acclaimed The Clean House at the Fortune last year.
"It's a tradition now," he grins."I hope to make New Zealand a yearly stop on my travelogue. I love Dunedin and what you have here and professional theatre is a big part of that. Theatre is necessary."
A Streetcar Named Desire is based on Williams' own life, when he escaped from an abusive father, changed his name and moved to the French Quarter of New Orleans; a poor neighbourhood of artists and prostitutes, where the streetcars had names.
The play tells the doomed tale of Blanche Dubois and her brother in-law, Stanley Kowalski, and the strong sexual attraction between the pair.
"She has her romantic idea of what love should be, while he is in touch with his animal nature. It responds to animal urges and how far someone can go denying them.
"It could have been a comedy if she coped, but she doesn't cope and so it's a tragedy," Hall-Flavin says.
"If you look at the classics and why they remain in our imaginations it is because we become better human beings by investigating others. We're allowed to make mistakes on stage that you can't make in real life.
"It's said art is a mirror to humanity. Well, I think a good play is like a prism. It shows the different colours that appear in others."
The cast includes Jude Gibson, Jarod Rawiri, Jacqueline Nairn, Erroll Shand, Carol Smith, Brian Rankin, Chris Horlock, Marama Grant, Cameron Taylor, Brian McNeill and Olivia Muliaumaseali'i.
See it
A Streetcar Named Desire opens at the Fortune Theatre tomorrow night and runs until June 16.
