Texas Shakespeare Festival marks 40 years with return of first play…
“We wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for the Daisy Bradford 3,” says Texas Shakespeare Festival’s Val Winkelman.
TSF Veteran
The first discovery well of the East Texas Oilfield was brought in Sept. 3, 1930, and changed the world. It was Columbus Marion “Dad” Joiner’s third attempt on Bradford’s 80-acre tract in Rusk County, ultimately flowing into the history books and, decades later, the pages of a stage play by Gifford Wingate.
That piece was the cornerstone of what became the Texas Shakespeare Festival, celebrating 40 years in 2025.
“The first show that started the whole festival,” says Winkelman, another cornerstone of TSF, marking a few years shy of four decades with the company. “We wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for the Daisy Bradford 3. That was the literal foundation of the festival and of Kilgore.”
Just so, it’s the production she’s most excited about this milestone season with two staged readings today, July 8, at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. It’s not Winkelman’s first outing as director – she’s helmed other productions across a long career in theater – but it is her first time directing for TSF.
[ Main Image: Daisy Bradford poses with A.D. “Doc” Lloyd (left) and Columbus Marion “Dad” Joiner in a photo from the East Texas Oil Museum archives. Courtesy Photo ]
Winkelman first signed on with the local festival in 1989, three years after the debut of the work commissioned from Wingate.
“In 1986, it was the first festival. For Kilgore College and City of Kilgore, the contribution to the sesquicentennial that year was to do a local history play about the discovery of oil in East Texas,” Winkelman said. “Then Raymond Caldwell founded the Texas Shakespeare Festival and put Shakespeare along with it to get professional actors and designers and directors to come to Kilgore to do what they thought was going to be a one and only season.
“Just one season to celebrate the sesquicentennial, and it sold out, and it was very popular, and the college said, ‘Well, let’s do it again next year.’ And every year it just kept going.”
Four decades later, the two staged readings of ‘Daisy Bradford No. 3’ will feature alumni from across the festival’s run.
“This is my 37th year, so I feel like I have been on a journey, you know, with the Texas Shakespeare Festival. We’ve grown together,” Winkelman said. It’s a privilege to direct Wingate’s piece, with Amanda Rudolph serving as Stage Manager: “I love the story. I love the characters. I just love it. It’s just always been one of my favorite plays.
“We did it for about nine years in a row… Then we just started doing other things in that production slot, including a kind of a sequel to it called ‘The Last Titan’ which was more about the ramifications of the oil boom and what happened with all the influx of people to town. Then we just started branching out and doing other things.”
Being based on real events and real people from Kilgore, Overton, Henderson and throughout Gregg and Rusk Counties, when the play was first performed in ’86, some of the ‘characters’ were still alive.
“The younger characters in the story came to see the show,” Winkelman added. “The streets around town are named after some of these people, you know.”
Learn more about TSF’s 2025 summer season, including Daisy Bradford No. 3, at TexasShakespeare.com.
“I just love everything about the show and the story and the fact that it’s real people from this community,” Winkelman said. “It’s just really part of the fiber of the community.”
