Theater LaB Houston to Premiere WINIFRED in May

Following five years of development, including workshop readings in Austin and a staged excerpt at DiverseWorks in Houston, Winifred, by Alva Hascall, will be given its world premiere by Theater LaB Houston (TLH), May 6-22, 2016, at Midtown Arts Center Houston (MATCH).

For this multi-media production, TLH will collaborate with UnCommonWill Collective (UCWC). UCWC is: Tek Wilson, of Houston; and Alva Hascall and Lisa Westkaemper, of Austin and Rockland, Maine. The collective has been awarded grants in support of this work from the Warhol Foundation Idea Fund and ScriptWorks Seed Support Fund.

The play's heroine is Winifred (Winnie) Wagner, a British orphan who was adopted by distant German relatives. She was chosen as a wife for Siegfried Wagner, reigning head of the Wagner dynasty, who was under pressure to produce heirs. He was a closeted homosexual and therefore needed a compliant, understanding and fertile bride. They married and Winnie produced four children in four years. Siegfried died in 1930, leaving his practical wife as head of the Wagner festival. She reigned over the Festspielhaus for fifteen years, surviving through the depression and the war largely through the largesse of her friend Adolf Hitler, who she had met in 1923. She was a party member, was tried and convicted as a Group II Offender following the war, and was stripped of her power, influence, and assets. Winfred rescued many from the clutches of Nazi aggression, and it can be argued that her only crime was being a woman in friendship with Hitler. Following the fall of the Third Reich, she refused to demonstrate a politically correct level of remorse over her past. As a result, she remained notorious. Winifred died in 1980.

Operatic in scope, Winifred's story bristles with themes of innocence and guilt, sexual politics, artistic purity, feminism and familial relations. Like the lady, this play has a titanium spine and prizefighter's reach. Frankly theatrical and brutally frank, with dazzling language that provokes and propounds, it forces its audience to examine themselves as they examine Winifred-the specimen set before them on the stage.

TLH has assembled a unique creative team for its world premiere production of Winifred. Playwright Hascall will direct. Houston actress Tek Wilson (previously seen at TLH in Killer Joe by Tracy Letts and Season's Greetings by David Sedaris), for whom the play was written, will play the title role. Lisa Westkaemper will manage the project and serve as dramaturge.

Winifred is for adult audiences; it contains images of warfare violence, frank sexual discussions, and loud noises including staged gunfire.