Theater on site of nation’s first playhouse reopens in South Carolina after $18M renovation

Encore: Historic SC theater reopens in Charleston

CHARLESTON, S.C. — The Dock Street Theatre in Charleston’s historic district, on the site of America’s first theater, is reopening after a three-year, $18 million renovation.

The theater is known to audiences regionally and around the world for the productions staged there by the Spoleto Festival USA.

“This theater for 70 plus years served our city and really the country,” said Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr., as he conducted a tour of the renovated building.

“It became a showpiece for Spoleto Festival USA and it became in our city, with so many historic buildings, a very special part of the city’s history and its cultural and architectural character,” he said.

The original Dock Street Theatre, on what was then known as Dock Street, was built in 1736 and was the nation’s first. It burned down and several replacement structures, including a hotel, occupied the site over the centuries.

The existing building was renovated for use as a theater in the 1930s by the economic stimulus agency of that day, the Works Progress Administration.

But after seven decades the Dock Street needed everything from new wiring and plumbing to replacements for termite-damaged timbers, Riley said.

The building also had seismic upgrades for earthquake protection that weren’t included in the 1930s. Charleston was rocked by a magnitude 7.3 earthquake in 1886 that killed more than 100 people. Riley said part of the theater renovations were covered by a grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

“It was a very complicated engineering challenge which required boring under the ground and basically strengthening and retrofitting and supporting the foundations,” the mayor said.

The exterior walls and stairwells were also reinforced. Other improvements include soundproofing, new dressing rooms and elevators and, a change audiences will like, cushions on the wooden theater seats.

“Every component of the building was restored,” the mayor said. “But we knew that among our challenges was to make sure when you came back in the building it would be the same building you remembered.”

The theater reopens to the public next week.

On April 1, the Spoleto Festival USA holds a gala to celebrate the opening of the theater that each year is the venue for its popular chamber music concerts among other productions.

Also to celebrate, the festival this season is staging “Flora,” the first opera performed in the American colonies, at the Dock Street.

This year’s Spoleto Festival USA opens May 28 and runs through June 13.