As one of the 20th century’s most successful playwrights, Tennessee Williams penned popular works at the very pinnacle of US theater, including A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

Years before his almost unparalleled Broadway triumphs, however, the aspiring writer then known simply as Tom wrote a series of short radio plays as he struggled to find a breakthrough. One is The Strangers, a supernatural tale offering glimpses into the accomplished wordsmith that Williams would become, and published for the first time this week in the literary magazine Strand.

It is a “significant find” according to scholars of Williams’s early days and upbringing in Missouri.

“The play incorporates all the theatrical elements of early radio horror,” said Andrew Gulli, the publication’s managing editor.

“A storm, howling wind, shadows, a house perched over the sea, flickering candles, mysterious footsteps on the stairs, spectral beings … as well as early hints of the themes and devices Williams would return to in his most famous later works: isolation, fear, the shades of gray between imagination and reality, and a house haunted by memory and the private terrors of those who inhabit it.”

The Strangers never made it to Broadway, and is believed to have enjoyed only a single performance on a rural radio station in Iowa as part of a short-lived series called Little Theater of the Air in 1938.

But the script’s dark themes, characters and plot twists provide a fascinating, albeit limited glimpse at the style Williams was honing on his way to the big time with plays exploring repression, desire and loneliness. It was written as part of his coursework at the University of Iowa, where he was studying for an undergraduate English degree.

“It is unusual as a radio play,” said Tom Mitchell, a Williams biographer and expert who was not connected to Strand’s acquisition of the work from the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin.

“It is significant as a ‘find’ insofar as it is one of the many examples of Williams’s writing that hasn’t been published yet [and] is among a number of stories that fit into the category of weird tales, ghost stories, exotic mysteries, science fiction, time travel, etc.

“It’s a fairly standard scary tale, but it’s fun and spooky, and even more fun when read aloud.”

The plot centers on an elderly couple and their spinster houseguest on a stormy night on the New England coast, where the rotating beam from a nearby lighthouse provides sporadic relief from the darkness and the presence of supernatural beings known as “the strangers”.

A series of distressing events leaves listeners wondering if the beings are “a materialization of the occult, or projections of the characters’ unravelling minds”, according to John Bak, professor of literature at Wits University and the Université de Lorraine, who wrote an analysis of the play for Strand.

At the time he wrote it, Bak said, “Williams was still trying, unsuccessfully, to land work in either federally funded theatre or radio broadcasting, but that failure would prove fortuitous, both for him and for American theater, for Tom Williams was on his way to becoming Tennessee Williams.

“Like many of his early experiments, The Strangers, with its portrayal of isolation, fear, psychological ambiguity, and the possible mental unraveling of its characters, does more than reveal an emerging artist: it foreshadows so many of the themes that would define Tennessee Williams’s most enduring works.”

In 2021, Gulli uncovered another previously unpublished work by Williams, his 1952 short story The Summer Woman, found in archives at Harvard University’s Houghton Library.

By that time Williams, who died in 1983 aged 71, had found success, writing the story eight years after his breakout play The Glass Menagerie, and almost midway between publication of two of his biggest successes, A Streetcar Named Desire in 1947, and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in 1955.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV) – When Savannah Bishop’s 13-year-old got into Roblox, it seemed innocent enough to her.

“The game itself, it’s a pretty cool interface,” Bishop said. “They can go in, and they can play all sorts of little sub games, and some of them are very innocent. The one that my kid was into at the time was pretending you’re a pizza delivery driver.”

But she started hearing some concerning things about the online gaming platform, so she sat down with her son to take a look for herself.

“It took maybe 10 minutes or so for the first obvious adult to be questioning me about things like where I went to school and what kind of stuff I was into, and if I had any other apps, you know, they try to get you on stuff like Telegram or WhatsApp, Snapchat,” she said.

Bishop was logged into her child’s account which she says was clearly marked as belonging to a 13-year-old boy. As she explored the game even more, she says the messages she saw shocked her.

“I was absolutely horrified,” she said. “They were discussing the possibility, right off the bat, of doing pretty lewd sexual acts with a profile that’s marked as a child. There was another one that had a profile that was marked as, I believe, a 14-year-old girl, but it obviously wasn’t because then ‘she’ started talking about, you know, her size and if she was going to be able to drive to meet my child.”

She kept searching only to find sub-games, called “experiences” in the app, with lewd theming and tasks she found inappropriate.

“They’re able, they’re encouraged, in fact, to perform sexual acts,” Bishop said. “They’re encouraged to commit crimes. Like some will say, ‘If you can steal this person’s wallet, then you’ll get so many points,’ you know, or ‘If you can beat up this this old lady…’”

Bishop says she reported the chats to Roblox, but never heard anything back.

“I just don’t feel like they’ve tried hard enough to circumvent them, because I did report all of the users that were interacting with my child in a way that wasn’t appropriate. Nothing came of it.”

The lawsuit

It’s stories like this that sparked Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti to file a lawsuit against Roblox, claiming that the company’s “deceptive and unfair business practices” are putting Tennessee kids at risk.

“Roblox is the digital equivalent of a creepy cargo van lingering at the edge of a playground,” Skrmetti said in a press release announcing the filing.

The lawsuit, filed this week, claims the game creates an environment where predators can “readily hunt, groom and sexually exploit minors.” It argues the company is violating the Tennessee Consumer Protection Act of 1977 by marketing itself as safe for kids despite numerous examples of child endangerment on the platform.

The lawsuit lays out the game’s reach, averaging 151.5 million daily active users in the third quarter of 2025, up 50 percent from the same time last year. According to the filing, over two thirds of the game’s daily users are under the age of 16.

It also details several “experiences” on the app that are accessible to children, including virtual strip clubs, sex rooms, and ones titled “Escape to Epstein Island” and “Diddy Party.” Other available mini games include some with racist messaging and one that simulates a mass shooting in a hospital.

The lawsuit acknowledges multiple restrictions imposed by Roblox in 2024 in an attempt to prevent children from seeing inappropriate content on the game, but argues the restrictions are easy for kids to get around.

Plus, it argues that because the game has virtually no age verification policies, it’s easy for kids to lie about how old they are.

The AG’s office is working with J. Gerard Stranch, IV, a founding and managing member of the Nashville-based firm Stranch, Jennings & Garvey, PLLC, to prosecute.

“We are proud to stand with the Attorney General in this fight to protect Tennessee families,” Stranch said. “Roblox has had nearly 20 years to fix these obvious safety flaws. Instead, they have chosen to profit from a system that monetizes the very interactions that put children at risk by ignoring these very serious flaws in the platform.”

Roblox responds

Roblox’s Chief Safety Officer Matt Kauffman responded to the lawsuit in a statement, saying it “fundamentally misrepresents” the game.

“This lawsuit fundamentally misrepresents Roblox and how it works. Roblox is built with safety at its core, and we continue to evolve and strengthen our protections every day. We have advanced safeguards that monitor our platform for harmful content and communications. Users cannot send or receive images via chat, eliminating one of the most prevalent opportunities for misuse seen elsewhere online. Safety is a constant and consistent focus of our work, and we are currently rolling out additional measures to further limit who users can chat with. We take swift action against anyone found to violate our safety rules and work closely with law enforcement to support investigations and help hold bad actors accountable.

As a dad, I know there is no finish line when it comes to protecting kids, and while no system can be perfect, our commitment to safety never ends. Parents can visit our Safety Center to learn more about our safety work and ways to keep their children safe online: roblox.com/safetycenter.”

The company said that it has multiple safety measures in place and that its policies are purposefully stricter than other social networks and user-generated content platforms.

It also said Roblox does not allow image sharing in the chat feature, which is also subject to filters that are designed to block personal information sharing.

“We constantly monitor communication for critical harms and swiftly remove violative content when detected and work closely with law enforcement,” Roblox said.

Additionally, Roblox said it recognizes the wide-spread issue of age verification, and that it recently announced that the company would be rolling out age estimation technology globally by the end of the year.

“Roblox works closely with law enforcement, government agencies, mental health organizations, and parental advocacy groups to create resources for parents and to keep users safe on the platform,” the company said. “For example, we maintain direct communication channels with organizations, such as the FBI and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), for immediate escalation of serious threats that we identify.”

Protecting your kids online

In 2025, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force received more than 21,000 cyber tips from social media companies.

“A lot of people hear that word cyber tip and they just think, ‘Oh, it’s just a tip,’” said Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the task force Robert Burghardt. “These are actually cases of either children and or subjects in the state of Tennessee that are either being harmed and or are harming other children.”

He says the biggest concern for parents should be online communication and chatting apps.

“Any social media app or platform out there where you can communicate, then a child is potentially in danger of being harmed,” Burghardt said. “These people know what to say to kids. There’s scripts out there that tell what to say for certain age groups.”

Burghardt travels to schools across the state talking to children about the dangers of online chatting.

“Pretty much every school that I’ve talked to, there’s either a child that gets up and leaves crying, and or comes to me afterwards saying, ‘Hey, this is happening to me,’” he said. “They just don’t know. They just feel alone. A lot of times they feel trapped. They keep it inside, because the last thing they want to do is go and tell their parents.”

Burghardt says predators often find kids on gaming apps like Roblox or Fortnite and convince them to start messaging on other apps with less restrictions like Snapchat or Discord.

He says the conversations can devolve into sending and receiving inappropriate images, and AI is only making things more complicated.

“With just one click, all of a sudden turn that innocent photo of the child into a nude photograph, send that to that child and say, ‘Hey, we have your nude. You might as well send us more or give us money,’” Burghardt said. “Unfortunately, we deal with the suicides with sextortion among kids. To them, it’s the scariest and the worst time of their life. Knowing that their images are possibly out there, you know, being shared forever.”

To protect your kids, Burghardt recommends eliminating or seriously limiting the online chatting availability to your kids. Many social media and gaming apps, including Roblox, have parental controls that allow you to disable chatting functions.

He also says it’s important to always know what your kids are doing on their devices.

“These social media companies know exactly what your kids are doing online all the time, so why can’t you as a parent?” he said. “You have that power. You can take that phone.”

After what she saw on Roblox, Bishop now only allows her kids to play the game on a shared device with direct adult supervision.

“Their friends are getting to play it, and it really sucks as a parent because you don’t want your child to be othered or feel left out,” Bishop said. “I always tell my kids, too, ‘I’m not judging you because I have no idea how I would have handled it if this type of technology had been available when I was a teenager.’ I try to approach it as me and them against the dangers and against the problem rather than me against them as the problem.”

Copyright 2025 WSMV. All rights reserved.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee pardoned country star Jelly Roll on Thursday, clearing the Nashville native’s felony convictions in the state. 

“His story is remarkable, and it’s a redemptive, powerful story, which is what you look for and what you hope for,” Lee told local reporters, according to The Associated Press. 

Lee and Jelly Roll shared a hug in front of a lit Christmas tree and a fireplace decorated with holiday garlands.

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The Grammy-nominated artist was one of 33 people to receive pardons from Lee, who for years has issued clemency decisions around the Christmas season. 

State officials said Jelly Roll’s request underwent the same months-long thorough review as those of other applicants, with the Tennessee Board of Parole issuing a nonbinding, unanimous recommendation in April.

Jelly Roll’s criminal record includes robbery and drug-related felony convictions.

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He has said receiving a pardon would make it easier to travel internationally for concert tours and to perform Christian missionary work without having to navigate extensive paperwork tied to his past convictions.

Friends and civic leaders rallied behind the musician in an outpouring of support for his application, underscoring how far he has come since serving time behind bars.

Lee said he had never met Jelly Roll until Thursday, when the artist visited the governor’s mansion following the pardon announcement.

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Unlike some recent high-profile federal pardons that have freed inmates from prison, Tennessee’s pardon process is about forgiveness, not release. It applies only after a sentence has been served and can help restore certain civil rights, including the right to vote, though limits remain, and the governor controls the terms.

Jelly Roll previously testified before the U.S. Senate about the dangers of fentanyl, describing his drug-dealing younger self as “the uneducated man in the kitchen playing chemist with drugs I knew absolutely nothing about.”

“I was a part of the problem,” he told lawmakers at the time. “I am here now standing as a man that wants to be a part of the solution.”

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In the 2023 documentary “Jelly Roll: Save Me,” he revealed he’s been to jail about 40 times for various offenses. His most serious charge came when he was 16, for aggravated robbery and possession with intent to sell. Jelly Roll was tried as an adult and faced up to 20 years in prison but ended up serving a little more than a year, and seven years of probation.

Fox News Digital has reached out to Jelly Roll and Gov. Lee for comment.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.