From the desk of Clay A. McCollum, ASO’s Director of Artistic Administration
When I’m asked, “Hey, Clay, what are you most excited for in the 2025-2026 season?” my immediate reaction is this: “I’m excited that the orchestra is producing Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific in concert in January 2026.”
Hi, I’m Clay McCollum, ASO’s Director of Artistic Administration. As some already know, my background is in classical music, but my main experience comes from regional opera. Producing this type of performance with the ASO is exciting because I’m bringing my expertise to ASO in a whole new way, not only for the 2025-26 season but also for 2026-27. Specifically, the orchestra will produce a semi-staged Golden Age musical, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific, in January 2026, followed by the world premiere of a new chamber opera by Alabama composer Joseph Landers in April 2027. Jody’s opera will be called Pink Clouds, with celebrity journalist and Alabamian John Archibald having written the libretto.
These concert productions of large, non-choral vocal works have historically been part of ASO’s tradition. Our most recent such concert was over ten years ago, and I hope to revive these performances regularly—ideally annually—or as close to that as practical. In November 2014, ASO staged Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel under the baton of Music Director Laureate Justin Brown (our Music Director at the time): Dane Peterson from UAB’s ArtPlay directed the production.
“Offering semi-staged concert productions at UAB’s Alys Stephens Center will provide an experience for patrons that ASO hasn’t mounted in more than a dozen years,” says Principal POPS Conductor Chris Confessore. “Clay has been invaluable as we work to bring South Pacific to the stage! He and I have been working on this off-and-on since summer 2023, and January can’t get here soon enough!”
In preparing for these performances on January 16 and 17, 2026, Chris and I are joined by veteran stage director Stacy Alley (Area Head of Musical Theatre at UA, Tuscaloosa) and Kelly Allison (Department Chair of Theatre at UAB) as we each take on our own “roles” in bringing South Pacific to life. This summer, you may have seen Stacy’s (director) Big River at Virginia Samford Theatre.
Some of you may be aware that Carnegie Hall mounted a similar South Pacific concert featuring Reba McEntire and Alec Baldwin. ASO’s performances will feature William Michals as French expatriate Emile de Becque and Birmingham local Kristen Campbell as Navy-enlisted nurse Nellie Forbush. Michals is perhaps best known for previously playing de Becque in Lincoln Center Theater’s most recent Broadway revival in the middle-2000s. That production was directed by Bartlett Sher and garnered multiple-Tony® Awards.
How lucky are we to bring William Michals to Birmingham to explore this timeless story and its poignant magic and heartache and redemption in a new way with you, our audiences! I saw LCT’s production, and we are truly in for two remarkable evenings of theatre. Kristen Campbell was seen this summer in July and August in Sara Bareilles’ Waitress with our friends at Red Mountain Theatre Company. She played zany best friend Dawn Pinkett. Coming off Dawn, it’ll be awesome to see Kristen step into a totally different character in the love-interest protagonist ingenue (Nellie in ASO’s South Pacific).
Tuscaloosa-based mezzo-soprano Dr. Alexis Davis-Hazell and local celebrity artist Caleb Clark complete our production’s main cast. Alexis, who recently appeared in our latest Birmingham Does Broadway! (February 2025), will portray the fearless Bloody Mary. We are excited to continue working with Alexis in January! She will also perform for ASO audiences in October 2025 and October 2026, appearing in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and Giuseppe Verdi’s Requiem, respectively. Creating complex characters such as Bruce in Fun Home and George in Sunday in the Park with George, Caleb is also a noted Birmingham artist who works in various mediums, focusing on portraiture and figure. Check Caleb out on Instagram, @calebclarkartist. He has been a regular part of our Birmingham Does Broadway! series, and he helped us close the 2024-25 season as a featured soloist in the Summer Symphony series.
If you have any follow-up questions about ASO’s January 2026 South Pacific, feel free to send me an email: Clay A. McCollum (Director of Artistic Administration), cmccollum@alabamasymphony.org. I would love to hear from you, and I look forward to seeing you in the theatre!
Get tickets to see this amazing production now! Click here.