"Love makes some people charming but it makes me dull." In the summer of 1940 Williams lived in Provincetown, Mass., where he fell in love for the first time - the man was Kip Kiernan, a dancer and Canadian draft dodger. Their affair lasted most of the summer, until Kip broke it off and left with a woman. Williams immediately drafted The Parade, which he finished in the 1960s. This play, which is related to the full-length Something Cloudy, Something Clear, not only presents a completely unguarded story about gay men, but also a portrait of passions unrequited and passions denied, that reveals the depth of compassion which can be found in friendship.
A par of the collection The Traveling Companion and Other Plays.
The Parade, or Approaching the End of a Summer premiered the First Annual Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival in a production by Shakespeare on the Cape Cod in October 2006 under the direction of Jef Hall-Flavin.