The Tennessee Williams Festival St. Louis has shared public panel conversations that focus on Tennessee Williams and his connections to St. Louis. Williams lived and worked in St. Louis, the Central West End, University City, and Clayton from 1918 till about 1938. He continued to visit family for forty years after that. He attended Field Elementary, Ben Blewett Jr. High, Soldan High School, and University City High School, the University of Missouri and Washington University. The 1930s when Williams began his writing career in St. Louis had much in common with our own times: with economic, social and political disruptions. Festival panels have always attempted to make connections between Williams’s own times and the present.
The Tennessee Williams Festival St. Louis Panels have addressed topics from mental health, ethnic identities, politically oriented theatre, jazz and blues music, changes in St. Louis neighborhoods, as well as discussions of his plays in production. Walking tours have closely examined The Hill and its Italian-American identity, the eccentricity of University City, the Central West End in Tennessee Williams’s formative years, and the intersection of art, commerce, and progressive politics in the Grand Center Area in the 1920s and 30s. Over the ten years of the festival, we have been able to introduce previously unpublished or little-known works to panel audiences.
In last year’s festival, the “scholarly content” focused in particular on the Grand Center area of St. Louis. A walking tour examined the area up-close at street level. Panelists spoke about the development of Tennessee Williams’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and the stage directions in the author’s plays. We invited local writers from the St. Louis Writers’ Guild to talk about their organization during Williams’s time as well as the present.
2025 festival panels will compare the cities of St. Louis and New Orleans to trace the influence of each in Tennessee Williams’s work. Another panel will look at how the play A Streetcar Named Desire has inspired other works for theatre, film and opera. A walking tour of the Central West End will identify locations formative in Williams’s young life and his writing. It will include the reading of newly discovered correspondence and a story about the playwright and his sister. Marking the tenth year of the Tennessee Williams Festival St. Louis, a panel will feature founder and artistic director, Carrie Houk, who will review the accomplishments of the past ten years. As a special event, award-winning actor and director, Austin Pendleton, will talk about his lifetime of work in theatre, film and television including numerous productions of Tennessee Williams plays.
Building a bridge to the future, a special roundtable conversation will bring together younger academic and artistic leaders from St. Louis and the region who share an interest in Tennessee Williams and American Drama. Under the direction of Villanova University professor Bess Rowen, they will consider how St. Louis can continue to explore and celebrate Tennessee Williams in the next ten years.
The 10th Annual Tennessee Williams Festival St. Louis will take place August 7-17, 2025 at The Grandel. For more information about the festival please visit twstl.org
