The Regions - Actors Theatre of Louisville

The Regions

For the next month or so, we'll be visiting the web sites of major regional theatres. This week:

Actors Theatre of Louisville

Now in its 35th year, in addition to its regular season of plays and musicals the Actors Theatre of Louisville is renowned for its Humana Festival of New American Plays (originally the Festival of New American Plays), which has seen over 230 productions - of almost 66,000 scripts submitted (around three thousand annually) since 1976. They are also the home of the National Ten-Minute Play Contest and the National One-Act Play Contest. In addition, they host the Brown-Forman Classics in Context Festival, a "multi-disciplinary arts and cultural event... designed to enhance audience enrichment through a mix of historical fact, film, lecture and, of course, theatre." They operate three separate theatres: the Pamela Brown Auditorium, the Bingham Theatre, and the Victor Jory Theatre. The Actors Theatre has been lead by producing director Jon Jory since 1969.

The Actors Theatre of Louisville has been the recipient of a special Tony Award for Distinguished Achievement, the James N. Vaughan Memorial Award for Exceptional Achievement and Contribution to the Development of Professional Theatre, and the Margo Jones Award for the Encouragement of New Plays. As host of the Humana Festival of New American Plays, the Actors Theatre has seen a huge number of its premieres achieve great success, including The Gin Game, Crimes of the Heart, Agnes of God, Extremities, Courage, Danny and the Deep Blue Sea, Road to Nirvana, God's Country, Keely and Du, and Slavs!

Their season ends in June (next season has not yet been announced) with Nixon's Nixon and Pump Boys and Dinettes.

The Actors Theatre Web Site

The ATL's investment in a quality web designer, Joel A. Smith, has paid off. A straightforward interface with clearly labelled navigation buttons makes it simple to find what you're looking for. The interface is frame-based, with a set of navigation buttons on the left side frame, with three additional buttons across the top: Quick Tix, Actors Theatre On-Line (which, as a "home"-type link is essentially always "depressed"), and Play Submissions. Quick Tix explains their new, reduced price "Day-Of" discount tickets. Play Submissions explains the submission policies for the current deadlines.

Some of the other links include:

General Info - location, parking info, addresses, special services (accessibility, sound enhancement, etc.), a brief description of the theatre, and box office phone numbers. Also included is Mr. Jory's biography.

The Plays - Details about the current season.

Books from ATL - a listing of published anthologies of plays from ATL and the Humana Festival.

Links devoted to pages with much more detail about the Humana Festival, Classics in Context, and the Ten-Minute Play Contest.

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