Tennessee Williams, perhaps best-known for his plays "Streetcar Named Desire," "The Glass Menagerie," and "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," is the author of a "massive body of work," in the words of N.Y.U. drama professor Joe E. Jeffreys. On the occasion of the centennial of Williams' birth—the playwright was born March 26, 1911—Jeffreys hosted the first of a three-part series at Manhattan's Museum of Arts and Design entitled The Kindness of Strangeness. (Williams fans will recognize the title of the panel from an achingly memorable line delivered by Blanche DuBois in the playwright's "Streetcar Named Desire.")