ABOUT ASFA

The school began with a group of Birmingham arts community leaders, who acquired discretionary funding from Governor Lurleen Wallace in 1968 to support after-school instructional programs based in community arts agencies.

In 1971, the Legislature approved a resolution formally establishing the school.  In 1974, after a year at Samford University, the school moved to Birmingham-Southern College, where it consolidated five arts programs and a core academic program, staffed in part by the Birmingham Public Schools. In 1976, the school moved to its own temporary campus in downtown Birmingham, where it established a private, non-profit support foundation to raise private funding to build an all-new campus complex.

In 1992, the Legislature approved a new law providing more specific authorization for the school.  The next year, the school moved into its new $10 million facility at the heart of Birmingham’s Cultural District. Campus improvements continued with the addition of a theater (1995) and mathematics and science wing (1996).  The math/science wing houses the school’s sixth specialty program, established in 1990 with a major donation from the Russell Corporation. In 1999, the school opened a creative writing wing.

In 2006, the Alabama School of Fine Arts Foundation kicked off the Stars of Tomorrow capital campaign, to raise money to build a 650 seat theatre complex called The Performance Network.  This will allow the city to broaden its creative and cultural base and set a new national standard for high school learning and performing in the arts. (For more information on The Performance Network, see Support ASFA.)