East Alabama Arts is pleased to announce a new programming initiative OPEN BOOK, a grassroots play exploration group led by Melaine Bennett and Steve Bice.

OPEN BOOK is a group of local community theater artists and enthusiasts who have come together in shared interest to read plays and spend time discussing them. From their first meetings in January of 2023, they have explored plays from ancient to contemporary, and plays in progress, discovering how they relate to current everyday experiences and cheering on the creation of new works for the stage, staged readings, performances by visiting artists and hosting new play workshops.

ABOUT A STORM CAME UP:

It’s the summer of 1963 in a small Alabama town and three young boys find themselves caught up in a complex crossfire between George Wallace, the KKK, the desegregation of the local school system, and memories of a murder they witnessed five years earlier. Narrated by the town’s gravedigger, who knows all the skeletons in the closets of this small town, the play examines the relationships of the boys and their families against the volatile backdrop of the Jim Crowe South.