Alabama Shakespeare Festival Unveils Seven Productions for 2024-25 Season
Featuring Ken Ludwig's Dear Jack, Dear Louise, and more.
By: Chloe Rabinowitz May. 17, 2024
Alabama Shakespeare Festival will put up seven productions in its 53rd season, featuring stories that probe humanity's courage, conscience, and conviction. ASF proudly continues its mission of building community by engaging, entertaining, and inspiring people with transformative theatrical performances and compelling educational and community programs.
“The upcoming season celebrates stories for all ages about our humanity through laughter, sentimentality, and strength,” said outgoing ASF Artistic Director Rick Dildine.
Opening the season is Ken Ludwig's sentimental, biographical Dear Jack, Dear Louise. Dildine's full-scale adaptation of A Christmas Carol takes over the Festival Stage in a triumphant celebration of the holiday season for the whole family. In the new year, we face fear and change with love and humor in The Watsons Go To Birmingham — 1963. Spring brings the comic swashbuckling of Ken Ludwig's Sherwood: The Adventures of Robin Hood in a mini-rep with William Shakespeare's most puzzling tragedy, Hamlet. From the 2023 Southern Writers Festival, and the first of ASF's New Southern Canon, emerges the world premiere of Donnetta Lavinia Grays' Kudzu Calling. Our season concludes with the RSC's musical and MGM film-like adaptation of The Wizard of Oz on the Festival Stage.
“We so appreciate the support and dedication of our returning — and new — subscribers and patrons,” said ASF Executive Director Todd Schmidt. “We hope to see them all back in Season 53 for the exceptional work ASF is known for.”
Season 53 subscription renewals are under way. New subscriptions go on sale June 28, 2024. Single tickets go on sale July 22. Subscriptions and tickets are only available through the ASF Box Office at 334-271-5353 and at ASF.net.
ASF continues its opportunities for the community to further engage with theatre through SchoolFest student matinees with cast and crew talkbacks, ASF Insights (deep dives with theatre and subject matter experts to enhance the patron experience), the always popular Bard Talks with theatre historian Dr. Susan Willis before each Shakespeare production, and community discussions around themes in its productions.
Fall Festival of Shakespeare returns for its third season in partnership with Montgomery Public Schools. Students will work with professionals in the theater community to produce works by Shakespeare that they will perform on the Octagon stage.
The Southern Writers Festival of New Plays will enter its 24th year of developing new works about the South, with public readings on June 15, 2024, in conjunction with the world premiere of Zelda In the Backyard, Elyzabeth Gregory Wilder's play developed through the 2022 festival.
Alabama Shakespeare Festival is a not-for-profit organization under the direction of Artistic Director Rick Dildine and Executive Director Todd Schmidt. As a beloved Alabama arts institution, ASF broadens the cultural identity of the South by producing the classics, Shakespeare, contemporary plays, musicals, theatre for young audiences, and exciting new works. A leader in education and outreach, ASF serves more than 20,000 students annually with artistic programming. ASF is supported by grants from the Alabama State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.
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