It was a special night at Pull-Tight Players Theatre in Franklin, Tenn. July 30 as playwright Kenneth Jones attended a special preview of the season 57 inaugural production, Alabama Story.
Jones, a former journalist and employee of Playbill, first saw his work produced by the Pioneer Theatre Company in Salt Lake City in 2015. Since then, Alabama Story has seen 70 productions, for audiences ranging from fewer than 100 to thousands.
Alabama Story is a partly fictionalized retelling of the events surrounding the placement of a children’s book at the public library in Montgomery, Ala. in 1959. The book, The Rabbit’s Wedding, is the work of famed illustrator Garth Williams, who appears as a character in the play.
An invited audience enjoyed a question-and-answer session with Jones and the play’s cast following the performance. Jones shared details about Alabama Story’s inception, its road to production, and its eventual publication. The playwright personally solicited many theatre groups across the country to encourage its staging.
Pull-Tight director Cindy Davis Massey said of the play: “It’s the best script I ever read. I fell in love with it immediately and knew I had to direct it.” Davis Massey previously directed 2022’s Crimes of the Heart, the theatre’s first production following a two-year pandemic shuttering.
Asked by an audience member if he knew his play would be as relevant and timely today as its subject matter was in its 1959 setting, he remarked: “I had no idea. It surprised me.”
A highlight for the cast and crew was when Jones offered, “This was pairing of best Lily and Josuha I’ve ever seen,” speaking of the characters Lily Whitfield and Joshua Moore, portrayed by actors Annalee McConnell and Jamil Parrish. The cast also features Pull-Tight veterans Jennifer Bennett and Donald Seitz, and newcomers Greg Allan Martin and Thomas Wehby.
Alabama Story is produced by Mark Mason and Pat Street. The show sponsor is the Williamson County Public Library. Season sponsor is the Family of Jayne Swafford Davis. Learn more about our donors and sponsors.
Alabama Story is presented by special arrangement with Broadway Licensing, LLC, servicing the Dramatists Play Service.
