Tony winner Alice Ripley will lead the cast of a private industry reading of Fall of ‘94, produced by Alabama Shakespeare Festival March 17. 

Fall of ‘94 is the coming-of-age story of five 12-year-olds in rural South Carolina. Susan Smith (Ripley), a white woman, accuses a black man of abducting her children in her car on national television, turning the eyes of the world on their tiny mill town. The kids focus on perfecting their annual Halloween “spook house,” but all around them, the excitement of a media frenzy is unfolding, bringing the town’s dark secrets to the surface, and just beyond their backyard, in John D. Long Lake, lay the answers to the nation’s questions.

The show’s features a concept and book by Ashley Robinson (Brokeback Mountain, 5&Dime), music by Joseph Thalken (Harold and Maude, Was), and lyrics by Tony-nominee Ellen Fitzhugh (Grind, Myths and Hymns). Shawne Rene Graham is dramaturg.

Joining Ripley in the cast are Wyatt Cirbus (Whisper House, Finding Neverland), Audrey Bennett (Frozen, Amelie), Robbie Crandall (Les Miserables, Chronicles of a Serial Killer), Kaden Anderson (Caroline, or Change; HBO’s Show Me a Hero), and Brayden Bratti (HBO’s White House Plumbers, Nickelodeon’s Anna & Friends).

The reading will be directed by Rick Dildine, artistic director of Alabama Shakespeare Festival. James Lowe is music director and Mary Kathryn Flynt will stage manage.

The musical was previously presented at Red Mountain Theatre’s Human Rights Festival in Birmingham, Alabama.

For more information, visit FallOf94musical.com.