Now Playing

Productions

• Home by Samm-Art Williams

  

  Optimistic and strong, young Cephus Miles is content to work the land on the small North Carolina farm he inherited from his family. When his childhood sweetheart rejects him and goes off to college, he moves north, finding a new job and a new girlfriend. But soon the dream begins to fade. This brilliantly inventive, lyrically expressive play deals joyfully with the coming of age in the mid-20th century.Recommended for audiences aged 14+ | Directed by Gary Dewitt Marshall, this production is part of the City of Charleston’s Moja Arts Festival.

  • Sept. 27-Oct. 5, 2024 
  • Black Box Theatre, Simons Center for the Arts
  • TICKETS:
    • Season Subscription for all Department of Theatre and Dance productions
    • General Admission 
      
    • CofC student tickets
    • CofC faculty/staff tickets
• The Drama of King Shotaway by Marvin McAllister

  

  Staged Reading of The Drama of King Shotaway:
  In a remote Greenwich Village in 1822, impresario William Brown and his all-African company defy local authorities to mount a play: a real insurrectionary drama about the indigenous Black Caribs of St. Vincent. This will be a Black dramatic first in the Americas, but Brown and his celestials haven’t a clue they are making history by staging someone else’s history. Recommend for ages 14+. | Directed by Nakeisha Daniel, this production is part of the City of Charleston’s Moja Arts Festival.

  • Oct. 4-5, 2024
  • Black Box Theatre, Simons Center for the Arts
  • Talkback Q&A and Reception with playwright Marvin McAllister
  • TICKETS:
    • Season Subscription for all Department of Theatre and Dance productions
    • General Admission 
      
    • CofC student tickets
    • CofC faculty/staff tickets
• Fall Dance Concert: What Comes Next

  

  Experience the thrill of the unknown as we explore the ever-unfolding possibilities of what’s to come. Featuring choreography by faculty and guest artists, this concert celebrates our diversity as we look to the future. The only certainty is the exhilarating promise of what comes next. Recommended for all ages. | Artistic Director: Gretchen McLaine

  • Oct. 19-20, 2024 
  • Sottile Theatre
  • TICKETS:
    
    • General Admission 
      
    • CofC student tickets
    • CofC faculty/staff tickets
• Dracula by Kate Hamill

  

  This new adaptation of Dracula from Kate Hamill turns Bram Stoker’s original into a feminist revenge fantasy. Both terrifying and riotous, Kate Hamill’s signature style and postmodern wit upends this familiar tale of Victorian vampires and drives a stake through the heart of toxic masculinity. Recommended for audiences aged 14+ | Directed by Evan Parry

  • Nov. 13-20, 2024 
  • Black Box Theatre, Simons Center for the Arts
  • TICKETS:
    
    • General Admission 
      
    • CofC student tickets
    • CofC faculty/staff tickets
• ISTORIA: A CofC Podcast Production

  

  This year, the Department of Theatre and Dance launches an exciting new project: an original podcast! Adapting the theatrical canon into modern stories, students work as writers, actors, audio engineers, sound designers, graphic designers and more to produce an original narrative series based on a new pilot by award-winning writer and CofC professor Michael Smallwood.

  Season one, drawing inspiration from La Bohéme and Lord of the Flies, follows a group of survivors on a malfunctioning starship. 

  Launched in February 2025, Istoria is now streaming on all podcasting platforms or click here to listen.

• The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui by Bertolt Brecht

  

  Described as “a gangster play that would recall certain events familiar to us all,' The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui is a witty and savage satire of the rise of Hitler - recast into a fictional, small-time Chicago gangster's takeover of the city's greengrocery trade in the 1930s. The satirical allegory combines Brecht's Epic style of theatre with black comedy and overt didacticism. Using a wide range of parody and pastiche - from Al Capone to Shakespeare's Richard III and Goethe's Faust - Brecht's compelling parable continues to have relevance wherever totalitarianism appears today. Recommended for audiences aged 14+ | Translated by Jennifer Wise | Directed by Todd McNerney

  • Feb. 20-25, 2025 
  • Emmett Robinson Theatre, Simons Center for the Arts
  • TICKETS:
    
    • General Admission 
      
    • CofC student tickets
    • CofC faculty/staff tickets
• Spring Dance Concert: Moved by Memories

  

  In celebration of ten years of our Spring Student Dance Concert, choreographers will use personal memories and conversations with past student choreographers to inspire the creative process and find new connections with significant moments from the past. Recommended for all ages. | Artistic Director: Kristin Alexander

  • March 21-26, 2025 
  • Black Box Theatre, Simons Center for the Arts
  • TICKETS:
    
    • General Admission 
      
    • CofC student tickets
    • CofC faculty/staff tickets
• The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

  

  Created by Rebecca Feldman, Jay Reiss, William Finn, and Rachel Sheinkin 

  20th anniversary of its opening on Broadway!

  Six awkward spelling champions learn that winning (and losing) isn't everything.

  While candidly disclosing hilarious and touching stories from their home lives, six students spell their way through a series of (potentially made-up) words, hoping never to hear the soul-crushing, pout-inducing, life un-affirming "ding" of the bell that signals a spelling mistake. Six spellers enter; one speller leaves a champion! At least the losers get a juice box. A riotous ride complete with audience participation, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is a delightful den of comedic genius. Recommended for all ages. | Director: Peter Spearman

  • April 11-16, 2025 
  • Emmett Robinson Theatre, Simons Center for the Arts
  • TICKETS:
    
    • General Admission 
      
    • CofC student tickets
    • CofC faculty/staff tickets