Orlando Ballet reimagines ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ for a run of shows at Steinmetz

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Orlando Ballet's 'Streetcar Named Desire' runs this week at Steinmetz

Stellaaaaaaa? Southern bard par excellence Tennessee Williams' tale of the tragedies of Blanche DuBois are about to get a retelling in an unexpected medium — ballet.

Orlando Ballet makes over the Dr. Phillips Center into a sweat-soaked New Orleans as they present choreographer Annabelle Lopez Ochoa's transformation of Williams' iconic play.

It's a fascinating conceit, taking Williams' gorgeous and wracked wordplay and boiling it down into non-verbal movement — and action and grace, power and vulnerability.

Lopez Ochoa debuted her reconceptualized Streetcar a decade ago at the Scottish Ballet. But it's key to point out that there has only been one other stateside performance to date, in Nashville (also in the South, obviously and gratifyingly).

Streetcar is part of a very physical and visceral season at the Ballet, definitely of a part with the gothic contortions of Dracula and the ecstatic explosions of Moulin Rouge. You've got four days to see this one, and then it sinks back into the swamp.

Thursday-Sunday, April 27-30, Steinmetz Hall, Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, 445 S. Magnolia Ave., drphillipscenter.org, $29-$119.