Birmingham-Southern Theatre

Birmingham-Southern Theatre was a performing arts program and the primary activity of Birmingham-Southern College's Department of Theatre, comprised of undergraduate students enrolled in bachelor of arts programs in theatre arts and musical theatre, as well as students in other majors pursuing electives.

Before closing with the college in May 2024 the program usually staged four major productions and six student productions each year. BSC hosted a chapter of the Alpha Psi Omega honor society for theatre arts. The theatre benefitted from the BSC Arts Alliance support organization.

Productions

• 1947–1948: Playboy of the Western World (John Millington Synge), Knight of the Burning Pestle (Francis Beaumont)
• 1948–1949: Alice in Wonderland (Henry Savile Clarke & Walter Slaughter), H.M.S. Pinafore(William Gilbert & Arthur Sullivan), The Rivals (Richard Brinsley Sheridan)
• 1949–1950: Ladies in Retirement (Reginald Denham & Edward Percy), Down in the Valley (Kurt Weill & Arnold Sundgaard)
• 1950–1951: Years Ago (Ruth Gordon), Family Portrait (Lenore Coffee & William Joyce Cowen), Pray for the Moon, The Desert Song (Sigmund Romberg, Oscar Hammerstein II, Otto Harbach, Frank Mandel), Chocolate Soldier (Oscar Straus)
• 1951–1952
• 1952–1953: Liliom (Ferenc Molnár)
• 1953–1954: Amahl & the Night Visitors (Gian Carlo Menotti), Arsenic & Old Lace (Joseph Kesselring), Simple Simon (Guy Bolton, Ed Wynn, Lorenz Hart, Richard Rodgers), The Enchanted Cottage (Arthur Wing Pinero)
• 1954–1955: The Corn is Green (Emlyn Williams), Queens of France (Thornton Wilder), The Indian Captive (Charlotte Chorpenning), King of Hearts (Joseph Stein, Jacob Brackman, Peter Link)
• 1955–1956: My Three Angels (Samuel & Bella Spewack), Dial M for Murder (Frederick Knott)
• 1956–1957:
• 1957–1958: See the Jaguar (N. Richard Nash), Brigadoon (Alan Jay Lerner & Frederick Loewe), The Chalk Garden (Enid Bagnold)
• 1958–1959: The Cherry Orchard (Anton Chekhov), The Boy Friend (Sandy Wilson), A Visit to a Small Planet (Gore Vidal)
• 1959–1960: A Midsummer Night's Dream (William Shakespeare), Caught Dead, Rashomon (Fay & Michael Kanin)
• 1960–1961: Twelfth Night (William Shakespeare), The Fantasticks (Harvey Schmidt & Tom Jones)
• 1961–1962: Troilus and Cressida (William Shakespeare)
• 1962–1963: Crawling Arnold (Jules Feiffer), The Visit (Friedrich Dürrenmatt), The Imaginary Invalid (Molière), Ernest in Love (Anne Croswell & Lee Pockriss)
• 1963–1964: The Truth Syrup (Howard Cruse), A Pageant for Dermuche, One Way Pendulum (N. F. Simpson), Much Ado About Nothing (William Shakespeare), Peer?, Bastien and Bastienne (Wolfgang Mozart), The Tragedy of Tragedies (Henry Fielding)
• 1964–1965: Six Characters in Search of an Author (Luigi Pirandello), The Caretaker (Harold Pinter)
• 1965–1966:
• 1966–1967: Women of Trachis (Sophocles), Blood Wedding (Federico García Lorca), Endgame (Samuel Beckett)
• 1967–1968: The Sixth Story
• 1968–1969: Caucasian Chalk Circle (Bertolt Brecht), Opus I
• 1969–1970: The Land of Heart's Desire (William Yeats), The Dumb Waiter (Harold Pinter), Sing to Me through Open Windows (Arthur Kopit), Deathwatch (Jean Genet), Johnny America Comes Home, The Strangler, Under Milk Wood (Dylan Thomas), The New Tenant (Eugène Ionesco), Escurial (Michel de Ghelderode), Uncle Vanya (Anton Chekhov), Opus II, The Doctor in Spite of Himself (Molière)
• 1970–1971: Dracula (Hamilton Deane & John L. Balderston), The Rainy Afternoon (William Inge), The Man with the Flower in his Mouth (Luigi Pirandello), Maid to Marry (Eugène Ionesco), Aoi no Ue (Zeami Motokiyo), The Collection (Harold Pinter), The Changeling (Thomas Middleton & William Rowley), Thieves Carnival (Jean Anouilh), Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (Tom Stoppard)
• 1971–1972: Die Fledermaus (Johann Strauss II), A Cry of Players (William Gibson), The Homecoming (Harold Pinter), ¡Cuba Si! (Terrence McNally), Othello (William Shakespeare), The Dance of Death (August Strindberg), The Madness of Lady Bright (Lanford Wilson)
• 1972–1973: Gianni Schicchi (Giacomo Puccini & Giovacchino Forzano), Cop-Out (John Guare), Charlie, The Death of Everymom (Arnold Powell), Marat/Sade (Peter Weiss)
• 1973–1974: The Devil and Daniel Webster (Douglas Moore & Stephen Vincent Benét), The Horse, Of Mice and Men ( John Steinbeck), Woyzek (Georg Büchner), Readers' Concert Theatre Tour of Alabama, The Doctor in Spite of Himself/The Flying Doctor (Molière)

Notable faculty

• Alan Litsey

References

• Harvey, Alec (April 16, 2024) "‘Try to Remember’: As Birmingham-Southern College prepares to close, alumni and faculty recall the theater program through the decades." By Alec Harvey - accessed April 17, 2024