Alabama Shakespeare Festival

The Alabama Shakespeare Festival, the State’s theater, builds community by engaging, entertaining, and inspiring people with transformative theatrical performances and compelling educational and outreach programs.

The Alabama Shakespeare Festival, located in Montgomery – Alabama’s state capital – is a fully professional regional theatre that produces around ten productions each season in association with Actors’ Equity Association, The Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, and United Scenic Artists Union. Productions of Shakespeare are at the artistic core of the company. Broadway musicals, children’s productions, American classics and world premieres round out the annual offerings at ASF.

In 1972 Martin Platt, the founding Artistic Director (1972-1989), had a dream of classical theatre and The Alabama Shakespeare Festival (ASF) was born. Originally located in Anniston in an un-airconditioned high school auditorium, ASF was a summer theatre festival – plays ran for six weeks during summer months. When the Festival faced bankruptcy in the early 1980s, Board Member Carolyn Blount approached her husband with this problem: The State of Alabama was about to lose a great cultural asset if something was not done. Wynton Blount agreed to build a new home for ASF, set in a 250-acre park, if only the theatre would move to Montgomery. Mr. Blount christened the performing arts complex “The Carolyn Blount Theatre” in December 1985. After moving to Montgomery, ASF began year-round operations with more than 400 performances scheduled each year. Mr. Blount’s gift of the theatre complex was the largest single donation in the history of American theatre. ASF has remained financially sound ever since – one of the few American theatres to do so.