(UNION, NJ) -- The Theater Project will wrap up its 2026 summer season with the first New Jersey production of Kenneth Jones's Alabama Story, about the clash between censorship and civil rights in the Jim Crow South, August 6-16 at the DMK Black Box Theatre. Alabama Story blends fact and fiction.
A real children’s book published in 1958, The Rabbits’ Wedding by Garth Williams, about the marriage of a white rabbit and a black rabbit, serves as both plot device and metaphor in Jones’s drama. A librarian finds herself going head-to-head with a segregationist state senator. A parallel story centers on the renewed friendship between childhood friends, a white woman and an African-American man. Jones has said the play takes place in “the Deep South of the imagination.”
The cast consists of Emily Bonaria, Gary Glor, Dalton Gorden, V. Martinez, Mikey Miller, Julianna Santos, Daniel Saunders, and Karen Thornton as Emily Wheelock Reed, the librarian at the center of Alabama Story.
“Since the DMK Black Box Theater is located in Union’s new library, we couldn’t do better than to present a play about Emily Reed, a true hero who stood up against racism and censorship at a particularly dangerous time,” said Mark Spina, The Theater Project’s artistic director.
The show runs eight performances, Thursday through Sunday, August 6-16, including: morning matinees on Friday, August 7, and Thursday, August 13 at 10:00am; and afternoon matinees on Sunday, August 9 and 16 at 2:00pm. Discussions follow several of the performances.
Ticket prices are $35 for general admission, $28 for seniors, and $20 for students. Sunday, August 14 is Senior Sunday where tickets are available for $23. August 14 is a “pay what you can” night. Tickets are available for purchase online. DMK Black Box Theatre is located at 1980 Morris Avenue in Union Township, New Jersey.
Based in New York and a lyricist as well as a playwright, Kenneth Jones has seen his dramatic and musical works staged by theater companies throughout the United States. Alabama Story was a finalist in the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s National Playwrights Conference. Jones is a member of The Dramatists Guild of America and BMI.
Founded in 1994 and based in Union, The Theater Project introduces New Jersey audiences to new plays and supports rising playwrights and theater artists. It develops new audiences for theater by service to the community, providing programs for children, and using theater as a forum to address current issues.
The Theater Project’s programs are made possible in part by funds from the Union County Office of Cultural and Heritage Affairs, a partner of the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, and by the generosity of many sponsors and donors, especially Ms. Stephanie Fein.
