![]() Greens brought down from the Calhoun County farm where I grew up decorated the lobby and stairs. Our first show in 1978 at the Dock Street Theatre was a production of A Christmas Carol. He secured the company’s first contribution-$250 from a generous and trusting Melvin Solomon. ![]() Though Charleston Stage at that point was just a dream, he believed in it and convinced others to believe as well. Ken joked that he was elected only because he was absent when his name was put in nomination, but Ken was a great cheerleader, mentor, leader and personal friend until his death in 2010. The first Board was formed under the leadership of the late Ken Hough, then headmaster at the College Preparatory School. I worked part-time for the City on such projects as Piccolo Spoleto before working full-time to manage Charleston Stage two years later. (We would become Charleston Stage in 1998). who offered to take me onto the City’s new Cultural Affair’s staff to create what would become the Young Charleston Theatre Company. So adults began taking kids more seriously and, even today, this keeps growing.Ī chance meeting in 1978 with Ellen Dressler Moryl, then the City of Charleston’s first Office of Cultural Affairs Director, led to a meeting with the newly elected Mayor Joseph P. I think kids were very much in the “seen and not heard” category before the 70s, when we saw a huge youth movement that showed young people wanted influence. There were professional youth theatres being created in bigger cities that I was inspired by, such as The Minneapolis Children’s Theatre and The Young Vic in England. The kind of youth theatre I wanted to do wasn’t in Charleston at the time–I wanted to provide a space for kids to perform for other kids. I was accepted to do a fellowship there, but instead of going to study it more I decided to just get in and start it. I applied to NYU which had a children’s theatre masters. I had no idea what it would take to do it. Ignorance truly is bliss when it comes to starting a theatre company from scratch. ![]() After he retired, I began looking for new opportunities to continue both my work in the theatre and my work with young people and came up with the idea of a youth theatre for Charleston. In 1974 I went to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and, after I received my MFA in Dramatic Art, I came back to Charleston to serve as Emmett’s assistant. I took several of Emmett’s courses and he became a mentor. Philip’s Church- Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and the opera Noye’s Fludde. Both were well received and caught the eye of the late Emmett Robinson, the long time Producing Director for the Footlight Players and a theatre professor at the College of Charleston. I wasn’t sure how to go about this, but I did have the opportunity while a student at the College of Charleston to direct two productions for the Youth Group at St. My love of theatre didn’t come in a flash, lightbulb moment–slowly and surely I learned this was the path I wanted to embrace. I found a natural intrigue with storytelling and picked up easily with all the improv we did working at summer camp. Joseph was the first Broadway production to surpass 1 million in production costs, and yet, I found it less exciting than Godspell’s more deconstructed set and imaginative performance. It started when some friends of mine from summer camp staff and I went up to New York to see Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and Godspell. Christopher on Seabrook Island, I wanted to find a way to combine my love of working with young people and my growing love of the theatre.
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