Alabama Shakespeare Festival

The Alabama Shakespeare Festival (ASF) is a professional repertory theatre in Montgomery. Founded by Martin L. Platt in 1972 as a summer programme in an unair-conditioned high school auditorium in Anniston, it moved in 1985 to the $21.5 million Carolyn Blount Theatre, a gift of Winton M. Blount, and was named the State Theatre of Alabama on June 17, 1977. It draws more than 300,000 visitors a year and ranks among the ten largest Shakespeare festivals in the world.[1][2][3]

Founding in Anniston

Martin L. Platt, a theatre and Shakespeare enthusiast, founded ASF in 1972 to fill a gap in Southeastern regional theatre. The first season, with unpaid actors recruited from Pittsburgh and New York and volunteer crews, included The Comedy of Errors, Hamlet, The Two Gentlemen of Verona and Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, supported by the Alabama State Council on the Arts. The ASF Guild formed in 1973 to supply volunteers, and the company moved into an Anniston high school theatre that year. The New York Times called Platt “a brash, brilliant director” in 1976, and on June 17, 1977 Governor George C. Wallace named ASF the State Theatre of Alabama. Josephine E. Ayers served as executive producer from 1978 to 1982, and the company toured productions such as Romeo and Juliet across Alabama and the Southeast.[1][2]

The move to Montgomery

Financial trouble in the early 1980s, driven by rapid growth and a short season, led to a relocation offer: Winton M. Blount would finance a new home if ASF moved to Montgomery, at the urging of his wife Carolyn. The 100,000-square-foot complex, designed in a Palladian-inspired style with more than a million bricks, opened in 1985. Landscape architect Russell Page planned the surrounding 250-acre park and lake, now the Winton M. Blount Cultural Park, which also holds the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts. The Festival Stage opened with A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the Octagon with The Glass Menagerie, and the December 7, 1985 gala was hosted by Olivia de Havilland and Tony Randall.[1][2][3]

Growth and leadership

The operating budget rose from $800,000 to $4 million in 1985 alone, and attendance grew from 25,000 in 1984 to 130,000 in 1985-86; the Montgomery Chamber of Commerce estimated the opening season’s indirect economic impact at more than $90 million. Platt left in 1989, and Kent Thompson became artistic director, serving until 2005, when the Festival Forever Endowment grew from $345,000 to more than $18 million and the budget doubled. Geoffrey Sherman led from 2005 to 2017, and Rick Dildine has been artistic director since 2017, with Todd Schmidt as executive director since 2018. The complete Shakespearean canon has been staged, and the company reports about 491 to 500 productions since 1972.[1][3]

Artistic milestones

In 1991 Thompson created the Southern Writers’ Project, which has developed more than 100 new scripts about the South. In 2004 the National Endowment for the Arts chose ASF to produce a Macbeth that toured 13 military bases in partnership with the Department of Defense. Studies have estimated ASF’s annual contribution to Montgomery’s economy at about $20 million, and about 55 percent of its budget comes from contributions and 45 percent from earned revenue.[1][2][4]

Education and community programmes

The Professional Actor Training Program and graduate study in costume design, set design and theatre management were run jointly with the University of Alabama; the MFA partnership was phased out after the class graduating in August 2009. SchoolFest offers discounted tickets to about 35,000 schoolchildren a season, Camp Shakespeare teaches children about theatre, Theatre in the Mind is a free adult lecture series co-sponsored with the Alabama Humanities Foundation, and Bard Talks and Stage Side Chats offer pre-show talks and post-matinee questions. The complex includes Shakespeare Gardens and 25 leased apartments for actors, and the company typically stages six to ten plays and 225 to 400 performances a year.[1][2][4]

FAQs

Who founded ASF? Martin L. Platt, in Anniston in 1972.

Who paid for the Montgomery theatre? Winton M. Blount, with $21.5 million, named for his wife Carolyn.

When was it named the State Theatre of Alabama? June 17, 1977, by Governor George C. Wallace.

How many seats does the Festival Stage have? About 750.

Sources

1. Encyclopedia of Alabama: Alabama Shakespeare Festival (ASF)
2. Alabama Shakespeare Festival: Celebrating 40 Years in Montgomery
3. Wikipedia: Alabama Shakespeare Festival
4. Business Alabama: The Bard’s Still on the Boards

Editorially reviewed by Specialty Digest Editorial TeamLast reviewed November 10, 2026Researched and drafted with AI assistanceReport an issue