Dorothy Jemison Day Theater

ASFA's 500-seat, state- of-the-art theater on the school campus.  At just over 19,000 square feet, it is the only theater of its size in the region appropriate for intimate community and school venues, with ideal viewing and acoustics. Designed as a professional venue, it will serve as both a performance and a teaching facility for the school and will provide an optimum learning experience for the students. 

The building includes a fly tower for changing scenery, green room, rest rooms and dressing rooms for performers, audience rest rooms, and scene shop for designing sets. The sound and light booth will be large enough for teaching 15 students at a time. Total square footage for the theater will be 19,212 feet.

The construction is the result of a seven year fund raising effort by the ASFA Foundation, a 501c3 non-profit organization that owns and rents the current facility to the school. The new theater will help stimulate the economic development and revitalization of the downtown arts district, which has a shortage of performance venues available to local performing artists.

Major donors include Alabama Power Foundation, Regions Bank, EBSCO, Daniel Foundation, Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham, Hillcrest Foundation, Jemison Investment, Hugh Kaul Foundation, Robert Meyer Foundation, Compass Bank, Vulcan Materials Foundation, AT&T Foundation, Joseph S. Bruno Foundation, Walls Foundation, and many individual donors.

Fast Facts:
     Seats: 500
     Stage Size: 40 x 80 feet
     Proscenium Opening: 42 wide x 33 high
     Architect: Live Design Group
     Consultants: Acoustic Dimensions; Theater Project Consultants
     Contractor: B.L. Harbert International
     Construction: 18 months, completed February 2012
     Construction Costs: $8.5 million; $1.1 million state and $7.4 million private

Interesting Facts:
    • at least 10 miles of conduit
    • Wenger Acoustical Shell
    • Steinway Concert Grand piano
    • Mechanical orchestra lift
    • WiFi
    • Scene Shop, Two large dressing rooms, green room
    • Acoustically tuneable listening environment
    • Sprung Stage Floor
    • Complete set of Marley flooring for dance

To Book the Theater
Contact Dan Gainey, Facilities Manager at dgainey@asfa.k12.al.us or 205-281-8481 if you have questions or want to book the theatre.

More About ASFA
The mission of the Alabama School of Fine Arts, a diverse community of explorers, is to nurture impassioned students by guiding and inspiring them to discover and fulfill their individual creative abilities in an atmosphere distinguished by the fusion of fact and feeling, risk and reward, art and science, school and society.

The Alabama School of Fine Arts is a partially residential public school authorized and funded by the Alabama Legislature to provide tuition-free instruction to impassioned students, grades 7-12. The school provides focused specialty instruction in Creative Writing, Dance, Mathematics and Science, Music, Theatre Arts and Visual Arts, plus core academic courses necessary to earn an Alabama high school diploma. The school operates under its own enabling legislation, policies and procedures, guided by a state-appointed Board of Trustees, under whom serves a staff of more than 100 full and part- time administrators, teachers and support workers. Alabama students pay a small semester matriculation fee, but no tuition. Students from outside Alabama pay tuition, which the school sets annually. Residential students pay room and board costs, set annually.