Alabama Story: Educational Resources Skip to main content

Alabama Story: Educational Resources

Cover of The Rabbits' Wedding by Garth Williams

As part of the Contemporary Voices Play Festival at BYU, Alabama Story is an example of an award winning playwright whose work we want our audiences and students to know. This play presents an opportunity to think deeply about censorship, racism, political power, and the importance of standing up for intellectual freedom.

Kenneth Jones’ Alabama Story has won multiple awards, including the BroadwayWorld Award for Best New Work in Salt Lake City in 2015, and was a Finalist for the National Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center.

Below you’ll find several links to sources across the web that will help you engage deeper with, and enhance your enjoyment of, Kenneth Jones’ Alabama Story.

Alabama Shakespeare Festival provides this study guide for teachers and audience members.

As part of their STEP (Student Theater Education Program), the Actors Theatre of Indiana created this study guide.

You can watch this interview with playwright Kennth Jones and the Pacific Conservatory Theatre.

Related Articles

data-content-type="article"

Contextual Resources for The Cherry Orchard

March 27, 2025 09:29 PM
The creative team began working on this production a little more than a year ago. In my role as production dramaturg, I was happy to create a website of resources first for the creative team, and then when we went into rehearsals, for the cast. And now that we are opening the show, the resources offer valuable perspectives to our audiences as well.
overrideBackgroundColorOrImage= overrideTextColor= overrideTextAlignment= overrideCardHideSection= overrideCardHideByline= overrideCardHideDescription= overridebuttonBgColor= overrideButtonText= overrideTextAlignment=
data-content-type="article"

Moving to the Cherry Orchard

March 20, 2025 08:14 PM
After months of rehearsing on a taped cement floor with acting blocks in place of benches and frames in place of doors, the company finally moves to the theatre space, to a stage with levels and furniture, working doors and chairs out in the audience. The beloved cherry orchard feels so much more real now.
overrideBackgroundColorOrImage= overrideTextColor= overrideTextAlignment= overrideCardHideSection= overrideCardHideByline= overrideCardHideDescription= overridebuttonBgColor= overrideButtonText= overrideTextAlignment=
data-content-type="article"

“That’s How Things Are”: The Weight of Waiting in The Cherry Orchard

March 20, 2025 03:10 PM
Near the end of his life, Anton Chekhov who had suffered from tuberculosis and depression throughout his life, decided to move to the seaside town of Yalta in order to heal. On January 18, 1904, he wrote to his wife, the actress Olga Knipper, “I’m writing The Cherry Orchard very slowly. Sometimes I feel it’s a success, sometimes a failure…It’s all very ordinary, but that’s how things are, unfortunately.”
overrideBackgroundColorOrImage= overrideTextColor= overrideTextAlignment= overrideCardHideSection= overrideCardHideByline= overrideCardHideDescription= overridebuttonBgColor= overrideButtonText= overrideTextAlignment=