If you’re a die-hard Shakespeare fan then this place is a must-see, considering that it’s the sixth largest of all Shakespeare festivals in the world and welcomes more than 300,000 visitors annually.

The festival’s roots can be traced all the way back to 1972 and its original location at an unassuming HS auditorium at Anniston, Alabama. After several years and encountering bankruptcy trouble, Carolyn Bount, one of the festival’s board members, had intervened with the help of her spouse, Wynton Blount.

And so the new – and current – home of the Alabama Shakespeare Festival was born, a proud and beautiful venue for the Bard’s greatest works that’s located in the midst of a sprawling 250-acre park.

Wynton Blount’s donation has been recorded as the biggest single donation in the entire American theater history and it’s a generous donation that certainly paid off. Today, ASF remains one of the few financially solvent theatres in the country.

Over $21M alone had been spent for the construction of the Carolyn Blount Theater, which is divided into two theatres – the Octagon, seating 225, and the Festival Stage, which can seat 750.