'The Shakespeare Gardens' Opened to Public
MONTGOMERY, Ala. June 5, 1999–The first of several new additions to the Wynton M. Blount Cultural Park has been officially opened. The Shakespeare Gardens will serve as a venue for a variety of events from non-amplified music concerts, lectures, and theatrical productions to private events including weddings and receptions.
The secluded 56,700 square foot garden complex, adjacent to the Carolyn Blount Theatre, home of the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, includes various plants and Elizabethan herbs mentioned in William Shakespeare's poems and plays. The project is a multi-million dollar gift by Wynton M. and Carolyn Blount to the people of Montgomery.
The landscape design for The Shakespeare Gardens was created by Edwina von Gal and Company of New York and features plants and flowers, such as Roses, mentioned in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Narcissus from Anthony and Cleopatra, and leek from A Midsummer Night's Dream. Medlar and Pomegranate trees will also grow in the gardens, Leafy Bowers, woven with Willow, Honeysuckle, and white and red roses clinging to clamshell shaped willow arbors provide a shady place for park visitors to sit and relax. Flowers will be changed several times each year.
An astonishing number of lush plants and delicate blooms have been installed in the secluded Shakespeare Gardens venue. Among them are 8,000 Narcissus bulbs covering 6,700 square feet. Another 1,000 square feet of bulbs include Asiatic Lilies and Chives. Surrounding a six-tiered 325-seat amphitheatre with rock ledge seats are 4,000 Catlin Sedges, 4,790 Yellow Archangels, and 1,285 Moneyworts used as ground covers, along with 570 Rosemary and Lavender plants.
A canopy of 55 trees will shade the garden and amphitheatre and will be at their height of color at different seasons of the year. Among them are Trident, Species, and October Glory Red Maples, Eastern Redcedars, Sweetgums, Athena Elms, Chinese Flametrees, Medlars and Pomegranates.
More than 200 magnificent garden shrubs include Dwarf Yaupons, Foster Hollies, Serviceberry plants, LaMarque vines, and Honeysuckles. Among the fragrant perennials are Tangerine Wormwoods, Red Poppies, and Rues.
Karen Weber, head gardener at Wynfield and a Master Gardener from Montgomery, will supervise the on-going care of The Shakespeare Gardens with the help of other area master gardeners.
The aromatic gardens are surrounded by uniquely woven willow wattle fences built by Marc Stinchcomb, a craftsman from Marc's Vine Yard of Millbrook, Alabama. He also built several trellises and arbors which are in the gardens over its numerous benches.
Public rest rooms for park visitors have been added as part of the new cultural park venue. The facility features a stone building and, like the amphitheatre stage building, is covered by a conical shaped thatched roof and features special Medieval chandeliers. About 12 inches of special thatch roofing consist of Turkish water reed and English combed wheat. The thatching was provided by WettStart International, Ltd. of England and was installed by a team of master thatchers from England. These are the same thatchers which installed the roof at the New Globe Theatre in London.
The English-style buildings in the Gardens were designed by Robert McAlpine of McAlpine Tankersley Architects of Montgomery. Overall construction was managed by Taylor Dawson of Andrew and Dawson Construction Company of Montgomery.
The extensively lighted amphitheatre and gardens in the Wynton M. Blount Cultural Park will be open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. for individuals and group tours. It will be available for admission-paid events, musicals, lectures, and private rentals for weddings and receptions by appointment. During scheduled events, the Gardens will be closed to the public. The amphitheatre features two crow's nest lighting poles typical of the period except for the construction material.
Additional, smaller garden sites scattered along walking trails to be located throughout the park will eventually be made available to Montgomery area garden clubs who wish to participate in the further development of the 300-acre park.
For additional information on The Shakespeare Gardens or to schedule an event on the 300-acre Wynton M. Blount Cultural Park grounds, contact Shirley Milligan, Managing Director, at
334-244-4354.
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Media Contact for the Agency: Contact for the Park:
Charles Barnette 334-277-3133 Shirley Milligan 334-244-4354
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 26, 1999
Contact: Kay Green, Public Relations Manager (334) 271-5336
Shakespeare's Gardens & Amphitheatre to open on June 5
Garden/Amphitheatre first in series of new projects in Blount Cultural Park
MONTGOMERY - Alabama Shakespeare Festival (ASF) announces the Community Open House of Shakespeare's Gardens & Amphitheatre in the Wynton M. Blount Cultural Park on Saturday, June 5, from 10 a.m. - 3 p.m. The Gardens, which house a 325-seat amphitheatre, feature flowers, trees, and plants mentioned in the works of William Shakespeare.Shakespeare's Gardens will serve as a venue for a variety of events, from music concerts to receptions to theatrical productions, particularly during the Shakespeare Renaissance Faire on June 12 & 13. The Gardens are independent of Alabama Shakespeare Festival, however, and there are no plans to use the Gardens as a venue for ASF play productions.The Gardens are the first in a series of planned additions to the park. Wynton and Carolyn Blount, having given 45 additional acres to the park in March, announced plans on April 5 for construction of several public facilities, including an English-style village, comprised of a Cotswold cottage, a large English barn, and an English pub/restaurant.Landscape design for Shakespeare's Gardens was done by Edwina von Gal and Company, and features plants and flowers such as roses, mentioned in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, narcissus, from Antony and Cleopatra, and leek, from A Midsummer Night's Dream. Medlar and pomegranate trees will also grow in the Gardens. Leafy bowers, woven with willow, honeysuckle, and roses, will provide a shady place for park visitors to sit and relax. Shakespeare's Gardens & Amphitheatre will be open to the public from sunrise to 10 p.m., Tuesdays through Sundays, and closed on Mondays. During admission-paid events or private rentals, the garden will be closed to the public. For additional information, contact Shirley Milligan, Managing Director of the Wynton M. Blount Cultural Park, at 244-4354.###
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 4, 1999
Contact: Gip Gibson (334) 271-5341 (334) 244-4334
The Shakespeare Gardens hold Community Open House on June 5
MONTGOMERY - The Wynton M. Blount Cultural Park announces the Community Open House of The Shakespeare Gardens in the park on Saturday, June 5, from 10 a.m. - 3 p.m. The Gardens, which house a 325-seat amphitheatre, feature flowers, trees, and plants mentioned in the works of William Shakespeare.The Open House will feature entertainment by Magician Roger Hardt, a live radio remote by Star 98.9 FM, free tours of the Gardens and ASF, and cookies, lemonade, and other refreshments. The tentative schedule is as follows:10 a.m. - 1 p.m. Star 98.9 FM live radio remote 10:30 a.m. David Rock, bagpipes10 a.m. and noon Free guided tours of Alabama
Shakespeare Festival11:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. Free guided tours of The
Shakespeare Gardens Noon Magician Roger Hardt (also performing in
the Gardens from 11 a.m.- 2 p.m.)12:30 p.m. Charleton James, acoustic guitar The Shakespeare Gardens will serve as a venue for a variety of events, from music concerts to receptions to theatrical productions, particularly during the Shakespeare Renaissance Faire on June 12 & 13. The Gardens are the first in a series of planned additions to the park. Wynton and Carolyn Blount, having given 45 additional acres to the park in March, announced plans on April 5 for construction of several public facilities, including an English-style village, comprised of a Cotswold cottage, a large English barn, and an English pub/restaurant.Landscape design for The Shakespeare Gardens was done by Edwina von Gal and Company, and features plants and flowers such as roses, mentioned in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, narcissus, from Antony and Cleopatra, and leek, from A Midsummer Night's Dream. Medlar and pomegranate trees will also grow in the Gardens. Leafy bowers, woven with willow, honeysuckle, and roses, will provide a shady place for park visitors to sit and relax. The Shakespeare Gardens are open to the public from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., Tuesdays through Sundays, and closed on Mondays. During admission-paid events or private rentals, the garden will be closed to the public. For additional information, contact Shirley Milligan, Managing Director of the Wynton M. Blount Cultural Park, at 244-4354.###
PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT
RUN THROUGH: June 5, 1999
Contact: Kay Green, Public Relations Manager (334) 271-5336
Community Open House to Celebrate Opening of Shakespeare's Gardens and Amphitheatre June 5
30 sec.:Join in as the City of Montgomery celebrates the opening of our newest jewel, Shakespeare's Gardens and Amphitheatre, at a Community Open House on Saturday, June 5 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. There will be free entertainment, refreshments, guided tours of the Gardens, and a live remote with your friends at Star 98.9 FM. Come out and enjoy the day in Shakespeare's Gardens, in the Wynton Blount Cultural Park, right next to the Alabama Shakespeare Festival.###
Wynton M. Blount Cultural Park Corporation Officials Named
MONTGOMERY, AL, April 5, 1999 – Two officials have been named to top posts for the Wynton M. Blount Cultural Park , a 501 C-3 not-for-profit Alabama corporation formed to direct funding and expansion of the park.
Joe McInnes, who in addition to his responsibilities at Blount International, Inc. and the Blount Foundation, is serving as volunteer Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Shirley Milligan is Managing Director, in addition to her responsibilities as executive assistant to Winton M. Blount. Other directors named for the new corporation are Winton M. Blount and Carolyn Blount.
The cultural park corporate board is overseeing expansion phases one and two, coordinating with the Blount Family, architects, designers, contractors, road builders and other city, county, state officials, and park entities.
Subsequently, Mrs. Milligan will oversee a staff which will be responsible for the day-to-day operations of the park's new facilities, policies, event scheduling (other than the Alabama Shakespeare Festival and Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts), outdoor venue coordination, and general promotion. A national public relations campaign is being planned to call attention to the park's growth since its opening in 1985 and its expected more than one million visitors annually beginning after construction is completed in 2001.
For now, the Cultural Park's administrative offices will be housed at 4520 Executive Park Drive, but will eventually relocate to facilities being built in the park.
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For further information, contact:
Charles Barnette 334-277-3133 or
Shirley Milligan
Cultural Park Managing Director
4520 Executive Park Drive
Montgomery, AL 36116
334-244-4354
Wynton M. Blount Cultural Park Expansion Unveiled
MONTGOMERY, AL., April 5, 1999–A major expansion of the Wynton M. Blount Cultural Park in Montgomery was today unveiled by park, state, city and county officials and members of industrialist Winton M. Blount's family.
One of the largest cultural parks in America, the 300 acre park will soon include new entertainment venues, a new roadway system, a new entrance and house the location of new, expanded and future attractions and other cultural activities which will join attractions already in the park.
A 250 seat amphitheater and Shakespeare Garden will open in June. Phase One Expansion construction, which began this month, will include a new entrance, new roads, bridge, a new lake and fourth entertainment venue, and extensive landscaping. Once the two miles of new roads are in, construction will start on an English style village, which will include a Cotswold cottage, a large English barn, an English pub/restaurant, gift shop, garden center, park administrative offices, an information center, and rooms for social gatherings as well as other buildings. Long-range plans to include Wynfield, the private home of Red and Carolyn Blount, as a house museum which will be opened into the park for tours were also unveiled. Also announced at a news conference for the expansion were construction of a private chapel and gardens, a large conservatory, horticultural facility, other gardens and support buildings on the Wynfield property, which will eventually be opened to the public. Land on the Cultural Park's master plan is also being reserved for other arts groups which may want to locate within the park.
Already located in the Blount Cultural Park are the Carolyn Blount Theatre, home of the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, and the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, which together attracted over a half million visitors last year. Primary Park benefactor Red Blount said he and his children, who are also contributing to the current expansion, can envision more than a million people annually visiting the cultural park in new millennium after construction is complete.
The park master plan was developed by Tom Blount, now working in Beverly Hills, Calif, working with Montgomery architect Robert Frank McAlpine and Landscape architect Edwina VonGal, of New York. Taylor Dawson, of Andrew & Dawson, Montgomery, is serving as general contractor and construction manager. Engineering is being handled by Goodwyn Mills & Cawood.
About two dozen local citizens have served on a cultural park planning board, chaired by Taylor Dawson, to put the Blount's vision into place. Planning for the expansion began in mid 1997.
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For more information, contact:
Charles Barnette 334-277-3133 or
Shirley Milligan, Cultural Park Managing Director
4520 Executive Park Drive Montgomery, AL 36116
334-244-4354
BLOUNT FAMILY REVEALS PLANS FOR CULTURAL PARK EXPANSION
Fields of Dreams
MONTGOMERY, AL, April 5, 1999 – A dream that began with the idea of relocating a nearly bankrupt theatre company to a permanent facility in a field in an industrialist's "back yard" has resulted in a cultural park in Alabama's Capital City, Montgomery, that rivals any in the world.
At first, local residents couldn't image the dream Winton M. "Red" and his wife, Carolyn, Blount had in 1983 for relocating the Alabama Shakespeare Festival to a state-of-the-art theatre facility which became the largest single private gift to the arts in the nation. But build it and they will come, dreamed the Blounts, whose company tacked some of the most ambitious projects and products in the world. Now in its 14th year in Montgomery, over 500,000 people annually attend performances at the two theatre facility, one of the top five Shakespeare festivals in the world, and at events and exhibits at the neighboring Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, also built in the park that is on the Blount property.
The Blounts kept dreaming, and soon the theatre project grew to become a full cultural park Mr. Blount's career as a major industrialist began after he and his brother, Houston, returned from World War II to form a construction company (Blount Brothers Construction) that grew to produce billions in annual sales. The first two lakes on the now 300 acre property quickly became venues for outdoor symphony and dance performances, and weekend entertainment events like Scottish, English Renaissance, African Heritage and other cultural arts festivals in the park, each attended by tens of thousands.
Then came the idea of a permanent outdoor amphitheatre and a Shakespeare garden to augment the beautifully landscaped grounds filled with flowers and trees. That latest outdoor theatre facility surrounded by traditional thatched roof structures will formally open in June 1999.
The Blounts decided they wanted to continue building their dreams. Gradually they gave more and more of their estate to the park authority, and the institutions located there under private/public partnerships entered into by the Blount family, with the city, county, and state. The Blount's subsequently bought adjacent land. Now, another multi-million contribution means construction has started on a new park entrance, nearly two miles of new park roads, a bridge, additional parking, and another terraced lake, which will contain a fourth venue for outdoor performances. After that phase is completed in the Spring of 2000, the Blounts plan to add an English style village, complete with a Cotswold cottage, which will house gift shops, an English pub/restaurant, and other structures, which will include offices and meeting rooms for local arts groups, and an array of facilities to accommodate the more than one million visitors expected in the expanded park annually.
The Blount's dreams still aren't finished. On Wynfield, the family home and grounds located on 29 acres in the center of the Cultural Park, landscapers and contractors are also busy at work. Rose and azalea gardens and crepe myrtles are in their growing stages. A vast conservatory, with a full service catering kitchen, is being built to host 300 for indoor receptions and 100 for seated dinner functions amidst new gardens adjacent the Blount's Georgian-style home, which was originally built in 1965. Surrounding the house are dozens of tall trees filled with thousands of tiny gold lights, which residents fondly refer to when they are lit on special occasions as the "enchanted forest."
Recently completed on the Wynfield grounds are a small private meditation chapel and garden. On the drawing boards are plans for a full horticultural facility, a new barn to house the array of Scottish sheep and horses which roam the pastures of Wynfield. Eventually, the Blounts plan to make the Wynfield house and grounds available as a museum for tours of the home's exquisite collections of paintings, antiques and art treasures.
Elsewhere in the Blount Cultural Park, space has been reserved for a new performing arts center, should the community wish to build one, and for other theatres and facilities should various arts boards wish to pursue adding them to existing cultural institutions already there or who would like to be in the park. "There's plenty of land," says Blount. "Who knows what someone else will dream of next?
"Our dream now is to create a unique place that people can visit, see, and study the arts and culture that have shaped the millennium. We want to create a year-round place to cultivate a love of beauty, a paradise with sculpture, trees, lakes and flowers. We envison a place of information and inspiration available to the community for leisure, cultural and educational activities. We're thrilled that 'Shakespeare in Love' was voted Best Film by the Academy Awards. Shakespeare is, as he has been for nearly 500 years, an inspiration for the society and culture of all nations.
"Coupled with the Montgomery Museum's fine collections of American and European art, its series of noted lectures, it's chamber music performances, and the vast array of other American arts resources found there, including sculptures and fountains now or later to be located on the property, we believe we've started something really great that people worldwide will want to come and share in the next millennium. It's not what you'd expect to find in this historic southern city."
The current phase of the Cultural Park expansion is being funded by the Blount family.
Other facilities, arts institutions which are housed in or use the park, and over 500 public events held in the park annually are funded by private and public partnerships by area businesses, the city, county, and state. The park triggered a cultural renaissance in Montgomery, now a metro area of 319,000.
In 1984 the greatest number of tickets for arts events ever sold locally was 1,500 seats for a national touring company which performed in a local high school auditorium. Today, Montgomery boasts several professional and amateur theatre companies, and still hosts touring companies. An outstanding community symphony orchestra, chamber ensembles, and world-class performance series, professional dance companies, numerous galleries, art museums, international exhibits, lecture series, and public schools for the arts for students from kindergarten to the post-graduate level are now offered.
Changing from annual arts expenditures 20 years ago of only a few hundred thousand dollars, today the arts have a $50 million economic impact in Montgomery. The city's love for the arts attracts actors, musicians, dancers, artists–both professional and amateur, and instructors from around the nation and world, who participate in and see more than five hundred annual performances, many reaching sold out crowds and running for months. More than 31,000 tickets were sold for one festival theatrical production run last year. Attendees come from all 50 states and more than 60 foreign countries.
People, ranging from students to retirees, traveling from California to the Carolinas, and from Canada to Mexico, come by the bus and car loads to attend cultural events. The park has spurned a rash of nearby hotels and restaurants for people who make a week or weekend of repertory theatre, arts events and historical attractions in the city. It is now common to see people of all economic situations sitting beside noted movie and theatre actors or executives enjoying a live theatrical performance or listening to musicians who rush to Beijing and back for a local performance in one of the venues in the Cultural Park on their way to a competition in Moscow or Salzburg. On some weeks in Montgomery now, one could see and hear several rising musicians who have played Carnegie Hall and actors who have been on stages on Broadway or in Hollywood in addition to many local performers.
"For this remarkable family, which has left its signature and name on monumental building projects and products around the globe in the twentieth century, their dreams for this grand cultural park in the twenty-first century have just begun," said cultural park chairman Joe McInnes.
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Contact: Shirley Milligan, Cultural Park Managing Director
4520 Executive Park Drive, Montgomery, AL 36116
334-244-4354