Alabama Story | Alabama Shakespeare Festival
1.334.271.5353 [email protected]

ALABAMA STORY

By Kenneth Jones

Directed by Rick Dildine

March 5 – March 22, 2020
Octagon Stage | 2 hours, plus intermission
Recommended ages 12+

It’s 1959, and the Civil Rights Movement is starting to grip America. In Montgomery, Alabama, a gentle children’s book stirs the passions of a segregationist senator and a no-nonsense librarian. A contrasting story of childhood friends — an African-American man and a woman of white privilege who are reunited in Montgomery that same year — provides private counterpoint to the public events of the play. Political foes, star-crossed lovers, and one feisty children’s author inhabit the same page to conjure a Deep South of the imagination.

“At a time when intolerance is on the upswing and empathy is under siege, Alabama Story is just the play we need.” – St. Louis Post-Dispatch

SHOW GUIDELINES

Alabama Story, ASF 2020 – Photo Stewart Edmonds (19)

Alabama Story, ASF 2020 – Photo Stewart Edmonds (105)

Alabama Story, ASF 2020 – Photo Stewart Edmonds (122)

ARTISTIC TEAM

Christopher Gerson*

Christopher Gerson*

Senator Higgins

Christopher Gerson last appeared at Alabama Shakespeare Festival in BUZZ, Our Town, and Romeo & Juliet. Recent credits: Servant of Two Masters at Great River Shakespeare Festival, Cleveland Playhouse, Triad Stage, The Pearl Theatre, Red Bull, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, South Coast Repertory, Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville. Television/Film: Mr. Robot, The Good Fight, Younger, Days of Our Lives, and Darwin: The Series.
Billy Hutto*

Billy Hutto*

Thomas Franklin

Billy Hutto is a New-York based actor and is thrilled to be making his ASF debut! Select theater credits include: From White Plains (Island City Stage), Pirates of Penzance (Theater at Monmouth), Death of a Salesman (Trinity Repertory Company), Spring Awakening (The Wilbury Group), and The Mormon Bird Play (Fringe-NYC). MFA: Brown/Trinity. BFA: NYU Tisch School of the Arts. Much love to my Alabama family – thank you for being here. billyhutto.com 
Alan Knoll*

Alan Knoll*

Garth Williams

Alan Knoll is thrilled to make his ASF debut with Alabama Story. Recently seen at Ozark Actors’ Theatre as Kent in King Lear. Regional: God in An Act of God (New Jewish Theatre); To Kill a Mockingbird – Bob Ewell (Repertory Theatre of St. Louis); Inherit the Wind – Matthew Harrison Brady (Insight Theatre); A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Snug/Lion (Shakespeare Festival STL); Peter Pan – Captain Hook (Variety Theatre); This Wonderful Life – Narrator (Dramatic License); Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf – George (Muddy Waters Theatre); Harvey – Elwood P. Dowd (Arrow Rock Lyceum). Alan lives in St. Louis with his wife, actor/writer Laurie McConnell and their dog, Sally.
Greta Lambert*

Greta Lambert*

Emily Wheelock Reed

Greta Lambert a company member for 33 years playing most of Shakespeare’s women, Ivy Rowe (Fair and Tender Ladies), Amanda (Glass Menagerie), Shirley Valentine, Dottie (The Furniture of Home), Truvy (Steel Magnolias), Linda (Death of a Salesman), Blanche DuBois, Hedda Gabler, Sarah Bernhardt, Eliza Doolittle. ASF directing: Much Ado About Nothing, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Comedy of Errors, As You Like It, Romeo and Juliet, Twelfth Night, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Macbeth, Proof, Relative Values, Beauty & the Beast, Cinderella, and The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. She now serves as ASF’s Associate Artistic Director.
Madeleine Lambert*

Madeleine Lambert*

Lily Whitfield

Madeleine Lambert Theatre credits: The Agitators (Alabama Shakespeare Festival and Geva Theatre Center), The Humans (Geva Theatre Center & Syracuse Stage); 20,000 Leagues Under the Seas (Lookingglass Theatre Company); How I Learned to Drive (Cleveland Play House & Syracuse Stage); Steel Magnolias, A Christmas Carol (Trinity Repertory Company); It’s a Wonderful Life, The Children’s Hour, Marie Antoinette, Blackbird, Anne Boleyn (The Gamm Theatre); Cock, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater); Uncle Jack (Boston Playwrights’ Theatre); Small Craft Warnings, The Time of Your Life (The Williams Project); Grounded, Middletown, At The Vanishing Point (Manbites Dog Theatre Company). Television credits: Empire and Chicago P.D. M.F.A. in Acting Brown University/Trinity Rep, B.A. Duke University, The School at Steppenwolf. Award-winning audiobook narrator.
Terrell Donnell Sledge*

Terrell Donnell Sledge*

Joshua Moore

Terrell Donnell Sledge is delighted to be back at ASF. ASF: A Sudden Spontaneous Event (SWF). Regional: Hartford Stage Co.; Cincinnati Playhouse; Repertory Theatre of St. Louis; Alabama Shakespeare Festival; Lyric Stage Co.; The Eugene O’Neill Memorial Theatre; Actors Theatre of Louisville Humana Festival; Merrimack Repertory Theatre; Pioneer Theatre Co.; Trinity Rep Co.; San Diego Repertory Theatre; Cygnet Theatre; Commonwealth Shakespeare Co.; Heritage Theatre Festival NYC: Boundless Theatre Company; Lark Theatre; P73; Naked Angels. Film & Television: CBS: Elementary; New Millenium Studios: Blues in The Night, Troop 491. Education: Terrell holds an MFA from Brown University/Trinity Rep and is a Yale University graduate. @thetdsledge

Director – Rick Dildine^
Stage Manager – Katie An Siegel*
Production Assistant – Brendan Woods
Scenic/Lighting Designer – Brian Sidney Bembridge**
Costume Designer – Kathleen Geldard**
Sound Designer – Melanie Chen Cole**
Wig Master/Supervisor – Angie Wright

*The Actors and Stage Managers employed in this production are members of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States

**United Scenic Artists, the Representative Voice of Designers and Scenic Artists

^Member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society

Presenting Sponsor

Alabama Tourism Department

 

Sponsors

Jere and Sara Beasley

 

Co-Sponsors

Dr. and Mrs. Eugene Stanaland