Festival Stage, Blount Theatre, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Montgomery, Alabama, USA

Festival Stage is the principal performance space within the Carolyn Blount Theatre and is home to the nationally acclaimed Alabama Shakespeare Festival, which moved its base of operation from Anniston, Alabama to this new theater complex in Montgomery in 1985. Carolyn Blount Theatre houses two theaters: the Festival Stage, and the Octagon. Ancillary spaces for the theaters include an actors' green room, dressing rooms, two rehearsal rooms, and prop, costume, scenery, sound, and lighting shops.

The 750-seat Festival Stage is designed to be used in either proscenium or thrust-staging mode. At the time, this theater was perhaps the largest and best equipped of its type in North America. Performance systems such as memory lighting controls, sound and communications, and theatrical rigging systems were carefully selected for ease of operation and low maintenance.

Alabama Shakespeare Festival operates year-round, producing fourteen world-class productions annually, including three works of William Shakespeare. In addition, classics of the stage - works by playwrights such as Moliére, George Bernard Shaw, Anton Chekhov, Tennessee Williams, Thornton Wilder, and Eugene O'Neill - are performed, along with musicals and new works commissioned by the Festival.

Artec provided Design and Planning services covering Auditorium Design, Facility Planning, Specialized Performance Equipment Systems Design and Background Noise and Vibration Control consulting for this facility. Architect of Carolyn Blount Theatre is Blount/Pittman.