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Home About the Little Theatre Season
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HISTORY In 1945 a group of people met for dinner at the Cleveland Hotel to form a literary club. This club became the Little Theatre of Spartanburg at a meeting on June 21, 1946, in the Parish Hall of St. Paul's Catholic church, where Dr. J.M. Wallace, president, John Carrington, vice-president, Mrs. Jameston Fant, Secretary, and Mr. Fant, treasurer, were elected the first officers. Meetings were held at the Herald-Journal Building and at Jenkins Junior High School to hear lectures on various phases of theatre and to perform one-act plays. Interest and membership increased rapidly. In November 1946 the first one-act play, Candlelight, by P.G. Wodehouse, opened at the City Recreation Hall, directed by Mr. Dan Mirto. David W. Reid of Milford, Massachusetts, who had served at Camp Croft during World War II, returned to Spartanburg at this time as Public Relations Director at Converse College. He directed the second play, The Late Christopher Bean, and continued as Director/Producer (and actor) until his retirement in 1982. Stage manager and Scenic Designer (and actor) for most of those same years was Ed McGrath. The Little Theatre production staff has included such notables as Henry Janiec, John Mabry, Pat Dillard, and Gary McCraw in the "music department," Barbara Ferguson and Marianna Miller as choreographers, and Rene Royaards on lights. In 1949 the Spartanburg County Foundation made available to the Spartanburg Little Theatre the movie theatre at Camp Croft, for a lease of one dollar a year. The first play at the new location (the Camp Croft Playhouse) was The Man Who Came to Dinner in 1950; and the first musical was Rodgers and Hammerstein's Allegro in 1953. With this show, the Little Theatre was honored by being permitted the first non-professional production of a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, and with its success the SLT was allowed the first non-professional production of Carousel the following season. On October 23, 1978, the Spartanburg County Foundation deeded the Camp Croft Playhouse and grounds to the Little Theatre. Through the years many improvements and additions to the building have been made through the generosity of the Spartanburg County Foundation, the Junior League, the Friends of the Arts, and area corporations. In 1982 the Camp Croft Playhouse was renamed the David W. Reid Playhouse. The
Little Theatre is the proud sponsor of the Spartanburg Youth Theatre (second
oldest in the state). Since 1973 the Youth Theatre has performed for
over 300,000 Spartanburg County young people. The Herald-Journal wrote, on
September 13, 1970: "The actors - behind the stage and on it - are a
legion, young, old, men, women, and children who, for a few short hours bring
to life the magic, the glamour of an art as old as man, himself - for them a
special place is reserved in the heart of Spartanburg's Little Theatre.
It is only through their untiring efforts that the show will go on. In 2006,
Imagine That was added to the SLT
programming. This program consists of
teens who perform improvisational shows targeted to teen audiences and their
parents. Performances include topics that are socially relevant to todays
teens. In 2007, The organization moved its offices to the new Chapman Cultural Center located on 200 East St. John St. All future productions will be held at the new David Reid Theatre in the Chapman Cultural Center o on - and on - and on."
PAGE LINKS: Mission Statement LT History
website design by Scott Cunningham
The Spartanburg Little Theatre is supported in part by The Arts Partnership and its donors, the County and City of Spartanburg, and the South Carolina Arts Commission which receives funding from the National Endowment for the Arts.
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This page is supported in part by The Arts Partnership of Greater Spartanburg, private donors, the South Carolina Arts Commission, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the City and County of Spartanburg.