Red Mountain Theatre to put on ‘Alabama Story’ play

The Red Mountain Theatre Company on May 2-3 is putting on a play at the Hoover Library Theatre that reflects back on Alabama’s segregationist history.

The two-act play, called “Alabama Story,” is based on the true tale of Emily Wheelock Reed, Alabama’s former state librarian who in 1959 was challenged by a segregationist state senator named E.O. Eddins.

Eddins tried to ban a children’s book called “The Rabbits’ Wedding,” which was about a black rabbit marrying a white rabbit.

“Alabama Story,” written by Kenneth Jones, weaves the true tale with another story about two childhood friends, one black and one white, who were separated by a traumatic incident that only one of them remembers.

The play originally was put on by the Pioneer Theatre Company in Salt Lake City, Utah, in January 2015 and by this spring has been produced in at least 24 cities across the country, including St. Louis, Detroit, Sarasota and Washington, D.C., according to the playwright’s website.

In 2016, it was nominated for the Steinberg/American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award. It also was a finalist for the National Playwrights Conference of the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center.

The Red Mountain Theatre Company produced the play last year, and the Hoover Library Theatre asked if the company would perform it again in Hoover as part of the state’s bicentennial celebration.

There are six actors in the play, four of whom were in the Red Mountain Theatre Company’s previous production of “Alabama Story.” This production will feature Ron Dauphinee, Kyle Holman, Jeremy Jefferson, Jennifer Price, Kristin Sharp and David Strickland.

Both shows are at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $27.50 plus a $2.50 processing fee, for a total ticket price of $30. Tickets can be purchased at hooverlibrary.org/thelibrarytheatre.