Now in our sixth year, RMT welcomes new voices, powerful works, and transformative performances to the stage.
Amid today's divisive rhetoric and Birmingham’s fractured past, RMT is working to spark world-changing conversations – one individual at a time. For through great art, we explore issues and emotions too difficult for mere words. And, this exploration opens us to consider the life of another – our fellow man.
RMT is proud to present three pieces at the Festival this year:
- Sam's Room
- She Reached For Heaven
- Four Little Girls: Birmingham 1963 (in partnership with Sixteenth Street Baptist Church)
Sponsored by: Susan & David Silverstein | Louise & John Beard | Keith Cromwell | Renasant Bank | Liz Rutherford & Sam Johnson | Sixteenth Street Baptist Church
September 22-24, 2023
See individual performance for time.
Location: Discovery Theatre
Price: Tickets start at $15
Rating: Performances deal with mature themes. See individual performances for content.
Parking is free but first come, first served.
SHE REACHED FOR HEAVEN
Friday, September 22 at 7:30 p.m.
Music and Lyrics by Oliver Houser | Book by Oliver Houser & Hunter Bird
She Reached for Heaven is an original musical inspired by Johann Hari's TED talk "Everything You Think You Know About Addiction is Wrong," which posits that the opposite of addiction isn't sobriety, it's connection.
On the outside, high school junior Jes Holt is doing everything she’s supposed to. On the inside, she’s never felt more alone and longs for something she can’t name. But when Jes meets Cody, Jes's world comes alive. Set against the backdrop of the greatest drug crisis in our country’s history, She Reached for Heaven is an original coming-of-age story about the devastations of addiction, and one woman’s journey to choose life rather than escape it.
Community partners for this performance: Recovery Resource Center and Jefferson County Department of Health
Content includes: strong language, drug abuse, parental death. Appropriate for teens and up.
Sam's Room
Saturday, September 23
Sensory Friendly Performance at 2 p.m.
Evening Performance at 7:30 p.m.
By Dale Sampson, Trey Coates-Mitchell, Caitlin Bell and Marc Campbell, in collaboration with The Key Family
Sam's Room is a pop concert dramedy that follows Sam, a nonspeaking teenager, on his path to find a way to communicate. Shifting between cruel reality and pop star fantasy, Sam's Room powerfully reveals the universal struggle with communication by giving a voice to someone who's never had one.
Community Partners for this performance: Spring Valley School and United Ability
Content includes: mild language. Appropriate for age 10 and up.
FOUR LITTLE GIRLS: BIRMINGHAM, 1963
JUST ADDED: Saturday, September 23 at 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, September 24 at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.
By Christina M. Ham
Every child imagines what they want to be when they grow up. The four little girls who attended the 16th Street Baptist Church were no exception. Four Little Girls: Birmingham 1963 centers on Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley and Addie Mae Collins, four little girls who are multitalented and bursting with promise and who share their hopes and dreams against the backdrop of the civil rights movement. While Denise dreams of becoming a doctor, Carole looks forward to the dress she will one day wear at the cotillion, Cynthia imagines her life as a mathematics professor at the local university and Addie Mae envisions a life as a professional baseball player. The realities of the segregated political climate that will put a stop to these dreams swirl around them and eventually culminate in the fateful events of September 15, 1963. This searing play dares to examine what it's like to be a child in the most extreme circumstances.
Community partner for this performance: Sixteenth Street Baptist Church
Content includes: real historical events. Appropriate for age 8 and up.
Thanks to our 2023-2024 Professional Series Sponsors
