Brunch With Blanche Pool Party Raises Funds for Streetcar & Beyond 10th Anniversary Season of Tennessee Williams Festival St. Louis
by Grayling Holmes / photos by Grayling Holmes / poster provided by the Tennessee Williams Festival St. Louis
Did you know that the Tennessee Williams Festival St. Louis (TWSTL) organization is a 501(c)(3)? Yes, that’s right. Although now a traditional charity that raises funds for the needy, every dollar raised at sundry fundraisers like the upcoming 4th annual pool party, goes right back into the organization so that TWSTL can keep St. Louis one of the top cities in the nation who hold the arts near and dear to its heart.
For ten years now, the institution (and yes, they can officially call it an institution at the decade mark) has lifted high the banner and has been the siren call that beckons all to bask in the brilliance of St. Louis’ adopted son, and arguably the greatest playwright in the nation, the inimitable Tennessee Williams.
The aptly titled “Brunch with Blanche” Pool Party to be held Sunday July 20, will be one of the highlights of the Streetcar & Beyond 10th Anniversary Season.
10th Anniversary Season
The Tennessee Williams Festival St. Louis (TWSTL) celebrates its Streetcar & Beyond 10th Anniversary Season in 2025. The festival was built on fertile ground in St. Louis because the city had a hunger for the words and sentiments of one of the greatest playwrights in American history, the two-time Pulitzer Prize winning Tennessee Williams. Although born in Mississipi, the majority of his works take place in St. Louis. From the beginning, St. Louis embraced the work of their “adopted son.” For ten solid years, that embrace has held tight in the Gateway City. This year, the organization celebrates Tennessee Streetcar. From that solid springboard, many events to celebrate the milestone season are now underway. The Festival itself runs for eleven days, August 7-17, with Streetcar as the headliner at the Grandel Theatre. Tickets available for purchase at twstl.org/tickets.
Brunch with Blanche Pool Party Planning In Pics
The Festival — 10 Years In the Making
Executive Artistic Director Carrie Houk laid the foundation for the Tennessee Williams Festival St. Louis in 2014, the year prior to it forming into a full-fledged festival.
“I held a special place in my heart for Tennessee,” said Houk. “His characters and word have always spoken to me on a very personal level.” Houk, a casting director for most of her career, became enchanted with Williams’ work. In 2014, she applied for the innovators grant with the St. Louis Regional Arts Commission and got it. It was quite a generous grant and made her first production of Williams’ work possible. “I had never produced a play before,” she said. “I had produced short films, but never a play.”
Her production of “Stairs to the Roof” opened in October of 2014 at the Boo Cat Club in the Central West End. It was well received. “We sold out in three weeks,” she said. “Everyone kept saying that it was so good seeing Tennessee Williams on stage.”
Although that production was supposed to be a “one and done,” Houk soon discovered that there was still an appetite for Williams’ works, even though he passed in 1983. His body of work had inspired festivals to pop up throughout the country. “His works inspire people to connect because of his understanding of the human condition. More than ever throughout the years and today, people are yearning to keep that connection in their minds. His beautiful words help rouse our psyches,” she espoused.
She went on to visit other festivals. Besides St. Louis there are three other major festivals – the New Orleans Literary Festival, the Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival, and the Mississippi Delta Tennessee Williams Festival. By 2015, Houk was ready to put together the St. Louis Festival.
“I have really good friends in St. Louis,” she said. “I was able to form a board, many of whom are still board members to this very day. Jill McGuire, former head of the Regional Arts Commission, and Fox Theater owner Mary Strauss are among them.” Their first meeting was around her dining room table. “Although we had a tiny budget, we kept applying for grants and heavy hitters like Edward Jones stepped up to the plate right off the bat.” Instead of more than a weeklong, as the festival is today, the first festival in 2015 was only a four-day weekend. The Festival’s first foray was to produce four different plays from Williams’ cannon of “Rooming House Plays,” of which take place in St. Louis. “Of all my ten years in producing his works, that first piece will forever be my favorite.” Houk said. “The audience flowed and through a rooming house located near Powell Hall and were entertained by actors in the hallway as if they were living there in real life. It was so beautiful when all four audiences convened at the end of the performances in the parlor and Anita Jackson, who played one of the roles, dies and is resurrected as an angel. The thought still makes me cry because it was so beautiful,” she recalls. “It wasn’t work,” said Houk of her time producing the inaugural season.
Initially, Houk couldn’t get the titles that she really wanted. “I wanted the rights to perform Streetcar in the third season, but the licensing agency was very particular about who they granted rights, and our festival was so new.” Through persistence and tenacity, she got Streetcar for season #3 in 2018, performed it that year and is the headliner for the 2025 Festival as well. “This time, we will revisit the story through a different lens,” said the Michael James Reed, who will direct the Festival’s 2025 production of Streetcar. “When I direct a play, I like to present the material as if the audience, whether familiar with it or not, is seeing it for the very first time. I try to translate it for the audience of today,” Reed also said.
Through the years, the show has gone on. While theater companies nationwide had to sit out 2020 because of the pandemic, TWSTL was able to produce and perform plays via ZOOM, in addition to producing radio plays on Classic 107. In all, they had a 26-week run in 2020.
At the tail end of the pandemic in 2021, even though many were wearing masks, Houk was able to pull together a unique feat. On an actual fire escape at a building on Westminister Place where Tennessee actually lived at one time, her trouper performed “The Glass Menagerie.” So novel was the performance that the New York Times sent out a reporter and photographer. “We made it on the front page of the arts section!” she exclaimed with glee. “The New York Times!” she repeated, recalling the milestone in national recognition.
“We’ve got a strong following here, yet after ten years, since we are a 501(c)3, in order to put on our plays we are dependent on ticket sales, grants and fundraisers like our upcoming pool party which one of our generous fans is hosting at his mansion this year on July 20th, she said. “Theater companies nationwide have lost a lot of corporate funding, and we are no exception, but because of the great support of benefactors who support fundraising efforts such as the pool party, we, like Blanche in Streetcar, are always left with a little bit of hope. With audience support, there Festival will thrive beyond the 10th season,” Houk said with conviction.
The festival still has a strong following, and this year renowned director Michael James Reed will “Traverse the roads of St. Louis as he captains the ship of the Streetcar vehicle,” said Houk. “Some take the genius of Tennessee for granted,” said Reed. “My aim is to show off his technical craftsmanship and storytelling acumen as he produced this perfectly crafted play, arguably his best work. Written in 1947, right after the end of WWII, Streetcar reflects the collective pain of society through the tragic triangle of Stella, Blanche, and Stanley at its basic core,” he said. “Without changing any of the words, my direction will focus on the heart of the story so that modern audiences will look at the Festival’s 10th anniversary production of Streetcar as the truly raw, emotional piece that it is,” he added.
As Houk produces “A Streetcar Named Desire” once again, she says. “I’m excited about our 10th season, what lies beyond it, and the magic we will continue to bring to a great son of St. Louis and the greatest playwright of the 20th century.”
10th Anniversary Festival Events
July 14, 2025
2025 Season Preview: St Louis County Library
Featuring Artists and Designers TWSLFest 2025
July 20, 2025
Tennessee Williams Annual Pool Party (fundraiser)
July 31, 2025
Thursday Nights At The Museum
Missouri History Museum Panel Discussion
August 7-17
10th Annual Tennessee Williams Festival
The Grandel Theatre in the Grand Center Arts District
“A Streetcar Named Desire” / Director Michael James Reed
“A Conversation with Austin Pendleton: A Life In The Theater Moderated by Dennis Brown”
Tennessee Williams Tribute:
A special evening of readings, song, dance and music celebrating the work of Tennessee Williams. A collaboration of other major St. Louis Arts Organizations including Opera Theater of St. Louis
Stella Shouting Contest / Grand Center
SATURDAY, August 9 GRANDEL THEATRE
9:00am
Tennessee in St. Louis/Tennessee in New Orleans
Between 1938 and 1940 Tennessee Williams made a transition from St. Louis to New Orleans. Experts discuss the influence of New Orleans on the work of Tennessee Williams, especially A Streetcar Named Desire.
10:00am
Ten Years of Tennessee: A Conversation with Carrie Houk, Tom Mitchell, and Mark Charney
Initiated as an act of love for St. Louis’s great playwright, the Tennessee Williams Festival St. Louis has a decade of accomplishments. Founder and Executive Artistic Director, Carrie Houk, talks about the festival’s beginnings, challenges, and accomplishments.
11:00am
Streetcar Adapted for Opera, Film, and Stage
Tennessee Williams’s great play has inspired adaptations in film, onstage, and in the opera. We will learn about Andre Previn’s operatic adaptation, Novid Parsi’s dramatic retelling within an Iranian immigrant family, and the influence of Streetcar in Pedro Aldomovar’s film.
SUNDAY, August 10 THE LINK AUDITORIUM, CENTRAL WEST END
9:00am
Walking Tour of Tennessee’s Central West End
The Williams family first settled in the Central West End and the neighborhood became important to Tennessee’s work. Beginning and ending at The Link Auditorium, this walking tour will visit neighborhood sites that relate to his life and writing. Along the way, we will hear Williams’s own words describing familiar locations. The tour will end with a READING of “God in the Free Ward: A newly published story written in 1934 about Anna Wilkins, hospitalized with a puzzling illness, which reveals Tennessee Williams’s feelings for his sister Rose before her confinement in a mental hospital.
SPECIAL EVENT: GRANDEL THEATRE
1:00pm
“My Life in Art” with Austin Pendleton
A conversation with the award-winning actor and director whose work has included productions of Tennessee Williams plays. Austin Pendleton’s long career has been distinguished by performances on stage, film and television in roles that are distinctive and committed. As a director, Pendleton has staged productions on and off Broadway and at major theatres around the country and abroad. He is also an influential acting coach. Among other plays, Austin Pendleton has worked on Tennessee Williams’s Vieux Carre, Night of the Iguana, Camino Real, The Glass Menagerie, and Small Craft Warnings. Moderated by Dennis Brown
Central West End Walking Tour
Fall 2025
Trio Foundation of St Louis Playwriting Initiative Finalists Staged Readings / Fall 2025 “Flight” (TBD)
