The Learning Center, located in the historic building at 4504 Westminster Place, designed by Theodore Link c. 1908*, is one of several venues (others are located in Grand Center) that will host activities planned for the inaugural Tennessee Williams Festival, Wednesday, May 11 through Sunday, May 15. Williams (1911 to 1983), who lived on Westminster Place, was a member of a theatrical club known as The Mummers, which held performances in what was then the home of The Wednesday Club.
From The Tennessee Williams Review:
It is not surprising that Tom’s August 1936 dream of escape led him to the garishly lit Westminster Place, the street on which his family first lived in St. Louis. It was also the street address of the Wednesday Club Auditorium, the building that became home to three of his first plays—Headlines, Candles to the Sun, and Fugitive Kind—and the stage for which he envisioned Spring Storm and Not About Nightingales. The auditorium was not only Williams’s artistic “home”; it also represented conflicting forces in 1930s St. Louis (and in the young artist): bourgeois society and the politically motivated laboring class.
This week, Williams' The Two Character Play produced by The Midnight Company will be performed at The Learning Center, Wednesday through Friday at 8 p.m., and Saturday & Sunday at 3 p.m.; ensemble: Williams Family Letters will be performed Friday at 6 p.m. Here is the jam-packed TWFSTL schedule.
Thanks to the enormous talents of TWFSTL Executive Director Carrie Houk, the festival features an exciting array of events including an appearance by actress Olympia Dukakis (sponsored by CWEnder Mary Strauss), a Beatnik Jam, screenings of Williams' films, "Al Hirschfed Draws Tennessee Williams" at the Kranzberg Studios, and much more.
The apartment building where the playwright lived is at the corner of Westminster Place and Walton Row, below.
The Central West End commemorates three well-known authors** who lived in the neighborhood on Writers' Corner, Euclid and McPherson Avenue. The setting for some of Tennessee Williams best-known plays was in the neighborhood (truth be told, he actually dissed St. Louis later in life), and his likeness by sculptor Harry Weber sits alongside what will be soon be Mission Taco Joint.
Tennessee Williams Festival, May 11 to May 15. For information and tickets, visit the website here.
*As found in A Guide to the Architecture of St. Louis by George McCue and Frank Peters, "Across the street from Second Presbyterian, Link raised, for the Wednesday Club, a building with a low-pitched, deep overhanging roof, strong horizontal accents, and an early-Modern air that was probably inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright's well-publicized Prairie House designs of the 1890s and early 1900s."
**Other authors included on Writers Corner are early-feminist author Kate Chopin and poet T.S. Elliot. Fundraising is underway (donations can be made to Central West End Association) for a 4th sculpture planned for the northeast corner alongside Pi of Beat author William Burroughs, who lived on Pershing Place.