Alabama Shakespeare Festival Announces New Season Productions

by Ellis Eskew

The beloved “Mary Poppins” flew into the Alabama Shakespeare Festival and took box office sales soaring with her with 27 thousand people who came to watch.

 “It was the highest grossing all-ages show in the history of the theater,” said Mike Vigilant, ASF Chief Operating Officer.

Now ASF executives say they want to continue that momentum and announced the new season including the rights to Disney’s “The Little Mermaid”.

“It’s important that it’s not on general release yet. People will get to see this particular version here in the southeast before they will get to see it anywhere else,” said Geoffrey Sherman, ASF Producing Artistic Director.

Sherman says “Mary Poppins” brought in new theatergoers that otherwise may never have come to the theater.

“The almost 30 thousand that came into the see ‘Mary Poppins’ compromised almost half new patrons,” said Sherman.

He hopes that will carry on throughout the many performances the Shakespeare Festival has to offer this coming season. 

 “I think it’s important to do the very large plays. It’s not that we want to be doing musicals all the time. It’s because we want to attract an audience into the theater to see all the plays we do, the Shakespeare, the straight plays, and the comedies.”

Other productions for the coming season include: “A Christmas Carol”, “Always…Patsy Cline”, “Alice in Wonderland”, “The Importance of Being Earnest”, Shakespeare’s “King Lear” and “As You Like It.”