Southern Shakespeare Festival

The Southern Shakespeare Festival was founded by American entrepreneur Michael J. Trout in November 1994 as the Florida Theater Project.

The inaugural Shakespeare in the Park production in 1996, A Midsummer's Nights Dream, directed by Russian director Irina Brown, drew over 30,000 spectators according to the local newspaper, the Tallahassee Democrat.

In 2012, the Southern Shakespeare Festival was revived thanks to Dr. Kevin Carr, Dr. Brent Griffin, and a dedicated group of Tallahassee theater artisans, most notably Laura W. Johnson, Catherine Leonard, and Lanny Thomas.

The Adderley Amphitheater at Cascades Park is the home of the revitalized festival, and appropriately, its first production, which ran April 17–19, 2015, was A Midsummer Night's Dream, directed by Lanny Thomas, and starring special guest AEA artist Jef Canter as Nick Bottom.

The Southern Shakespeare Festival is greatly supported by local and state government organizations including the City of Tallahassee, Leon County Tourist Development Council, Council of Cultural Arts (COCA), State of Florida Division of Cultural Affairs, with spartnerships with Florida A&M University and Tallahassee Community College.