Bag of Mail

Bear Bryant Play Coming to Birmingham



A play about Bear Bryant? Why not? It's coming to Birmingham.

To add a little nostalgia, the Birmingham performances are being sponsored by Coca-Cola and Golden Flake, which also sponsored Bryant’s popular Sunday afternoon television shows. The shows, which featured Bryant drinking Coke and eating Golden Flake potato chips while narrating replays of the previous day’s game, are recreated in the play.

As he did in Montgomery, veteran ASF actor Rodney Clark will play the adult Bryant. The play takes place on what is supposed to be a retiring Bryant’s last day in his Tuscaloosa office. The coach reflects on his life, including how he got his nickname by wrestling a carnival bear. When he retired in 1982, Bryant had won more games than any major college coach in America.

Clark said he was apprehensive about portraying a man who is still beloved by Bama fans. But the audience reaction changed that.

“The show turned into one of the most fun plays I’ve done in my life,” Clark said. “On opening night we had 20 of his former players in the audience and they just loved it.”

Clark said the atmosphere during the play’s run in Montgomery often resembled a football Saturday outside a stadium, rather than a theater that in recent years has staged high tragedies like “Othello” and “Macbeth.”

“We had people tailgating. For a theater to have people tailgating, that’s a dream,” Clark said.


I'm going to write about this later today at FanHouse, but for now I'm just going to allow it to marinate. The tailgating detail is extraordinary.

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Posted by Clay Travis at 11:16 AM

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