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Meander to Montgomery
by Barbara and Jim Twardowski
Springtime in the South is fleeting. The sweet respite before summer’s suffocating humidity is a time to be cherished. An easy four-hour drive to Montgomery, Ala. takes you to several unique attractions that are perfect for a “spring break.”
Jasmine Hill
The Jasmine Hill Gardens and Outdoor Museum is situated on the southernmost outcropping of the Appalachians just north of Montgomery in Wetumpka. The stunning 20-acre garden is open to the public only a few brief weekends between mid-March and mid-May. A favorite wedding site for local brides, the garden is ablaze with hundreds of camellias, Japanese cherries, azaleas, dogwoods, roses, snowballs, poppies, seasonal annuals and magnolias.
Nearly 80 years ago, the original owners of the property, Ben and Mary Fitzpatrick, traveled extensively to Greece collecting ideas and art objects for their home. The garden walkways and walls were built during the Depression when the Fitzpatricks’ neighbors hauled the stones by horse and wagon from a nearby creek. Over the next thirty years, the couple commissioned sculptors in Greece and Italy to recreate famous statuary and fountains for shipment to Alabama. Since the early 1970s, Jim and Elmore Inscoe have added pieces to the garden and supervised the grounds’ maintenance.
Today, the garden is affectionately known as “Alabama’s Little Corner of Greece.” A self-guided walking tour of the property includes some 40 pieces of Greek statuary honoring Olympic heroes and mythical gods. Take a stroll past the Temple of Hera ruins, a dolphin fountain, a goat and piping Pan, a pouting maiden, a bust of Zeus and terracotta lions.
A non-profit organization, Jasmine Hill is open March 9 until May 13 on Friday and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and on Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. Admission is $7 for adults and $5 for children. From Montgomery, take U.S. Highway 231 North, turn right on Jasmine Hill Road and travel 2.2 miles to the garden entrance. For additional information, call (334) 263-5713 or (334) 567-6463, or visit the website www.jasminehill.org.
’Bama and the Bard
A ticket to a New York City Broadway show will cost you at least $100. The plane fare is $250. A hotel room runs $200. Taxis, tips, and meals for a day will easily add another $150 or more. The total tab for a day in the Big Apple is $700.
Or, you can drive to Montgomery and pay less than $40 to see professional actors dressed in original costumes performing on custom-designed sets.
The Alabama Shakespeare Festival, known as ASF, mounts 14 productions a year. Over the holidays, their sold-out performance of Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” featured cast members who had Broadway and off-Broadway credits. Equity auditions for the ASF shows are held in New York City and occasionally Chicago or Los Angeles.
The sixth largest Shakespeare festival in the world, the ASF attracts 300,000 visitors annually. The massive $21.5 million-facility is set atop a hill in a 225-acre park with a lake and English-style gardens. Seating is intimate. The Octagon holds 250 people and the Festival Stage seats 750.
The facility is huge. Almost everything needed for a show is created on the premises. Wigs are hand-made; every costume is fitted on the actors—sewn first in muslin and then again in rich fabrics. If necessary, the perfect color for a garment is achieved in the dye room. Massive headdresses and delicate jewelry are designed and created in the basement of the 100,000-square-foot complex. The green room (the place where actors relax when not on stage) is located next to the work area where props and sets are built. Visitors can take a backstage tour for $5.
Each year, more than 400 shows are performed at the ASF. And they aren’t all the works of Shakespeare. Typically, three of the season’s offerings are Shakespeare’s plays while the remaining shows are classic works, such as Death of a Salesman, musicals or new works commissioned by the Festival.
The ASF wants to educate the audience. Most Saturdays, at the Theatre in the Mind, it offers free award-winning lectures that explore the authors, issues and eras of ASF plays. If you purchase a ticket to a Shakespeare production, arrive 30 minutes before the curtain rises for an informative explanation of the show with Dr. Susan Willis, resident dramaturg. After each matinée performance, stick around and ask the staff (actors, conductor and others) about the play.
For more information on ASF, visit www.asf.net, or call (800) 841-4ASF.
Wetumpka, Alabama
Small Town, Big Impact
Look to the east of Jasmine Hill Gardens across a forested valley. The spectacular view was created by an asteroid impact about 85 million years ago, near the end of the Age of the Dinosaurs. Scientist estimate the Wetumpka impact event was 175,000 times more than the energy of the nuclear bomb detonated at Hiroshima during World War II. In 2002, Wetumpka was added to the Earth Impact Database, which is an international list of approximately 200 proven impact craters. For more information, go to www.wetumpka.al.us.
