Cece Kelly knew from an early age that she wanted to make a go of acting as a career. She has the Virginia Samford Theatre and director Jack Mann to thank for that. “I did ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ at the Virginia Samford Theatre when I was 11,” she says. “That show, and the director, made me realize […]

There’s a sign on Sean Dietrich’s refrigerator in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida, that changes every day. “It’s a countdown, and today it says 10,” he said Feb. 23. That’s 10 days until Dietrich – the blogger/novelist/essayist/speaker/Alfa pitchman known as Sean of the South – and his wife, Jamie, make a big move. They’re moving from the Florida […]

When “Dear Evan Hansen” reopened on Broadway on Dec. 11, it was a big night in New York, but it may have been an even bigger night in Birmingham. Because “Dear Evan Hansen” returned with Jordan Fisher in the title role, and “The Lion King,” which had reopened in September, boasted Brandon McCall in the title role. Two young […]

The last time Brandon A. McCall was on stage as Simba in “The Lion King” was Wednesday, March 11, 2020, in South Bend, Indiana, just as COVID-19 was becoming prevalent in the U.S. “We had a show that last night, and we had a meeting to talk about what was going to happen,” he says. […]

When David Housel retired from Auburn University in 2006, after a legendary career as athletics director for the Tigers, it wasn’t long before his wife urged him to get busy again – and a deli on Glenn Avenue in Auburn was the beneficiary. “Susan wanted me to do something to get out of the house,” Housel recalls. […]

Early on in the COVID-19 crisis, Carlos Izcaray, music director of the Alabama Symphony Orchestra, composed a piece for the American Youth Symphony, where he’s also music director. “It was written for a virtually recorded ensemble,” the maestro says. “We recorded it remotely.” As the pandemic continued, administrators and faculty at the Alabama School of Fine Arts were looking for ways to engage their […]

About 75 years before the Titanic set sail from England for the first time and sank in the North Atlantic Ocean, something eerily similar happened in the Atlantic Ocean much closer to home. At 11:04 p.m. on the night of June 14, 1838, the steamship Pulaski had an explosion in its boiler room. It sank […]

“OK, but what if ‘Bridgerton’ was a musical?” That’s the question that Abigail Barlow, who grew up in Birmingham and lives in Los Angeles, posed to her TikTok followers in early January. The post included “Daphne’s Song,” the first song Barlow wrote based on the hit Netflix series about debutantes in Regency-era London. She also posted “I Burn for You,” […]

Though he started out as an athlete in Tuscaloosa, Bradley Constant came up with another dream when a shoulder injury sidelined him in middle school. “I was obsessed with the Disney Channel,” he says with a laugh. “I watched it all the time and I said, ‘I want to do this,’ and I started taking classes in Birmingham […]

In 1987, Fannie Flagg first introduced us to Idgie, Evelyn, Ninny and the other inhabitants of the fictional and oh-so-Southern Whistle Stop, Alabama. The best-selling book was “Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café,” and it spawned a cookbook and a hit movie starring Kathy Bates, Jessica Tandy and Mary Stuart Masterson. It’s as a writer […]

Chloe Cook knew as early as February that something might be up. As executive director of Sidewalk Film Center and Cinema and a member of the national organization the Art House Convergence, she was hearing whispers about what theater operators were seeing in other parts of the world as COVID-19 began to spread. “I was here watching people in […]

As Dolly Fox watched “Rockers on Broadway,” a New York fundraiser she produced, unfold a couple of weeks ago, she realized it was a full-circle moment for her. Her mother, Yolande Betbeze Fox, had won the talent preliminary and the title crown at both the Miss Alabama and Miss America pageants, and Dolly Fox herself had gotten some early performing […]

Walton Goggins is best-known for his roles as a career criminal on “Justified,” based on an Elmore Leonard short story, and a detective in the crime drama “The Shield,” so it might seem a little out of place to see him in the comedy “The Unicorn,” which premieres Thursday on CBS. Not for Goggins, a Birmingham native. “I […]

When Alie B. Gorrie moved to New York in 2015 after graduating from Belmont University, she was not unlike other young performers trying to find their way in the big city. Armed with a resume that included shows at Birmingham’s Red Mountain Theatre Company (RMTC), Gorrie taught yoga and worked part-time as a teacher, all the while auditioning for […]

A couple of years ago, Alabama native Margaret Renkl, who had made a career out of writing and editing, was stressed. Really stressed. Living in Nashville, she had moved her mother up from Birmingham to help take care of her in her final years. “After my mom died, and my husband’s parents had moved up here, too, […]

Markie Pasternak remembers the first day she realized her special ability had a name. And before we get too far ahead of ourselves, let’s make it clear. She really remembers the day. All of it. “I was in college at Marquette, and it was Aug. 26, a Tuesday in 2014,” she says. “I was wearing this white […]

Kerry Madden-Lunsford first met Ernestine Upchurch more than a decade ago. It was just after the 2005 release of “Gentle’s Holler,” the first of three young adult novels (the others are “Louisiana’s Song” and “Jessie’s Mountain”) that Madden-Lunsford would write set in the Smoky Mountains in North Carolina. Turns out that was Upchurch’s territory, and she […]

When Bob Zellner’s “The Wrong Side of Murder Creek,” his memoir of a white Alabamian joining the ranks of some of the greatest figures of the civil rights movement, came out in 2008, a movie was in the works almost immediately. Now, a little over a decade later, it’s going to happen. Directed by Barry Alexander Brown, longtime editor […]

From the outside, Bailey Coats looks like your typical college student. A senior in marketing at the University of Alabama, the 21-year-old is on full academic scholarship and planning to graduate in May.

Like many children growing up, Conrad Reed liked to tinker with model cars and airplanes. But while most have given up the childhood hobby, at age 68, Reed has yet to quit. He just works on the real things now. “I don’t fish, and I don’t play golf,” says Reed, a senior real estate specialist for […]

Michelle Segrest is thinking a lot about trash these days. “Trash and water,” she says. “Those have both been on my mind lately.” And not in a save-the-environment and conserve-our-natural-resources kind of way. Segrest is all for that, but right now she’s talking about plain ol’, everyday trash and water – where to throw it […]

Victoria Hallman and Diana Goodman were in attorney Bruce Phillips’ office one day reminiscing – Goodman about her time dating Elvis Presley, Hallman about her relationship with Buck Owens, both about their time as Hee Haw Honeys on the long-running television variety show “Hee Haw.” “We sat in his office and talked it up and […]

The Best Revival of a Musical win for “Once on This Island” at Sunday night’s Tony Awards brought theater’s highest honor to a contingent from Red Mountain Theatre Company. RMTC, its Executive Director Keith Cromwell and patrons Raymond and Kathryn Harbert all are Tony winners as producers of the award-winning musical. “What an amazing feeling […]

Like mother, like daughter. Like other daughter. That’s the way the old saying goes for the family of Angela Tower Walker. Angela was Miss Alabama 1986 and came close to winning Miss America. Now, three decades later, Angela has her eyes on two competitions this week: Saturday night’s Miss Alabama Pageant, in which daughter Callie […]