The Alabama Shakespeare Festival (ASF) is among the ten largest Shakespeare festivals in the world. The festival is permanently housed in the Carolyn Blount Theatre in Montgomery, Alabama. ASF puts on 6-9 productions annually, typically including three works of William Shakespeare. Other plays sample various genres and playwrights, classical and modern, sometimes with an emphasis on Southern works. ASF's Southern Writers Project nurtures the creation of new plays that reflect Southern themes. The festival stages more than 400 performances each year that attract more than 300,000 visitors from throughout the United States and more than 60 countries.