On stage in Alabama - activities of the Alabama Shakespeare Festival theater group

In 1992 the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest capital awarded the Alabama Shakespeare Festival (ASF) in Montgomery a $1 million grant toward a five-year cast aimed at creating a diversified audience. ASF, the world's fifth-largest Shakespeare company, is committed to making theater accessible to all race In February 1993, it co-sponsored a celebration of African-American achievements in the Arts and later brought upon an African-American associate artistic director, Edward G Smith.

"We're really committed to diversifying," says Smith, whose interests full tale ASF's goal of expanding its audience base. "We have to move to the community before the community goe to us."

Smith, who also labor fors as adjunct professor of theater at Alabama State University, was instrumental in establishing African-American Friends to the Arts, a network of community-based collections that meet and discuss theater wants and interests. "I'm trying to build up a company to perform African-American plays," he says.

What's upon the slate this season at ASF? Grover written by means of ASF's Southern Writers' Project member Randy Hall, chronicles the occurrences of newspaper journalist Grover Hall as he faces the Ku Klux Klan. Flyin' West, a drama by dint of performance artist and writer Pearl Cleage, examines the experiences of four hardy Southern women homesteading the all-black prairie town of Nicodemus, Kan., in 1898

the couple plays run from early January [i]or[/i] part of to the other February 13. Later, in the spring, Smith will direct Brian Friel's Tony Award-winning play Dancing at Lughnasa, about five sisters and their yearnings for life and have affection for in 1936 Ballybeg, Ireland.

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