Sottile Theater

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Sottile Theatre Murals Sottile Theatre Murals.jpg
Sottile Theatre Murals
Sottile Theatre
Gloria Theater
50 George.JPG
Address44 George St.
Charleston, South Carolina
United States
Coordinates 32°47′3″N79°56′8″W / 32.78417°N 79.93556°W / 32.78417; -79.93556 Coordinates: 32°47′3″N79°56′8″W / 32.78417°N 79.93556°W / 32.78417; -79.93556
Owner College of Charleston
OperatorCollege of Charleston
Typesmall movie palace
Capacity 785
Current useperforming arts venue
Construction
OpenedAugust 20, 1927 (1927-08-20)
Reopened1990
Years active1927-1974, 1990-present
ArchitectC.K. Howell and J.D. Newcomer
Website
sottile.cofc.edu

The Sottile Theatre is a theater in downtown Charleston, South Carolina. It is owned by the College of Charleston and is a rental venue used by many local, regional and national performing arts groups including Spoleto Festival USA. It has 785 seats and was built in the 1920s by Albert Sottile.

Charleston, South Carolina City in the United States

Charleston is the oldest and largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina, the county seat of Charleston County, and the principal city in the Charleston–North Charleston–Summerville Metropolitan Statistical Area. The city lies just south of the geographical midpoint of South Carolina's coastline and is located on Charleston Harbor, an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean formed by the confluence of the Ashley, Cooper, and Wando rivers. Charleston had an estimated population of 134,875 in 2017. The estimated population of the Charleston metropolitan area, comprising Berkeley, Charleston, and Dorchester counties, was 761,155 residents in 2016, the third-largest in the state and the 78th-largest metropolitan statistical area in the United States.

College of Charleston

The College of Charleston is a public sea-grant and space-grant university in Charleston, South Carolina. Founded in 1770 and chartered in 1785, it is the oldest college in South Carolina, the 13th oldest institution of higher learning in the United States, and the oldest municipal college in the country. The founders of the college include three future signers of the Declaration of Independence and three future signers of the United States Constitution. Founded to "encourage and institute youth in the several branches of liberal education," it is one of the oldest universities in the United States.

Spoleto Festival USA non-profit organisation in the USA

Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, South Carolina, is one of America's major performing arts festivals. It was founded in 1977 by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Gian Carlo Menotti, who sought to establish a counterpart to the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto, Italy.

Contents

History

The Theatre was built by Mr. Albert Sottile, President of Pastime Amusement Company. It was designed by nationally renowned architect C.K. Howell, who also built Charleston's Garden Theater in 1918. A building permit was pulled for a building costing $105,000 in late February or early March 1921, [1] and construction began in 1922. It was originally named the Gloria Theater and opened its doors on August 20, 1927, showing Norma Shearer's After Midnight. With 2,000 seats, the theatre was the largest of its kind in the state of South Carolina.

Albert Sottile House

The Albert Sottile House is a Victorian house at 11 College St., Charleston, South Carolina. The house was built by Samuel Wilson in 1890, a prominent merchant and banker. The architect of the house was S.W. Foulk of Richmond, Virginia.

Norma Shearer Canadian-American actress

Edith Norma Shearer was a Canadian-American actress and Hollywood star from 1925 through 1942. Shearer often played spunky, sexually liberated ingenues. She appeared in adaptations of Noël Coward, Eugene O'Neill, and William Shakespeare, and was the first person to be nominated five times for an Academy Award for acting, winning Best Actress for her performance in the 1930 film The Divorcee.

The Theatre served as both a vaudeville house and movie theatre and was designed as a smaller example of the great movie palaces of the era. The South Carolina premiere of Gone with the Wind, which highlighted the "charm and grace" of Charleston, took place at the Gloria Theater with members of the cast in attendance, including Charleston's own Alicia Rhett who portrayed India Wilkes in the film. [2]

Vaudeville genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s

Vaudeville is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 18th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a kind of dramatic composition or light poetry, interspersed with songs or ballets. It became popular in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s, but the idea of vaudeville's theatre changed radically from its French antecedent.

<i>Gone with the Wind</i> (film) 1939 film by Victor Fleming

Gone with the Wind is a 1939 American epic historical romance film, adapted from Margaret Mitchell's 1936 novel of the same name. The film was produced by David O. Selznick of Selznick International Pictures and directed by Victor Fleming. Set in the American South against the backdrop of the American Civil War and the Reconstruction era, the film tells the story of Scarlett O'Hara, the strong-willed daughter of a Georgia plantation owner. It follows her romantic pursuit of Ashley Wilkes, who is married to his cousin, Melanie Hamilton, and her subsequent marriage to Rhett Butler. The leading roles are played by Vivien Leigh (Scarlett), Clark Gable (Rhett), Leslie Howard (Ashley), and Olivia de Havilland (Melanie).

Alicia Rhett American actress and painter

Mary Alicia Rhett was an American actress and portrait painter who is best remembered for her role as India Wilkes in the 1939 film Gone with the Wind.

The theater was reworked in 1966. [3]

The theater served primarily as a movie house until it closed its doors in 1975.

Restoration

The College of Charleston bought the former Gloria Theater in 1976 and planned on restoring it as a 1,000 to 1,200 seat venue. For ten years, however, the building was simply used as storage. [4] College of Charleston President Dr. Harry M. Lightsey, Jr., began refurbishing the theatre in 1986, and it reopened in February 1990. In 1987, the owners of the King St. frontage donated that portion of the building to the College of Charleston which had previously owned only the auditorium portion of the building to the rear (fronting on George St.). [5] The federal government approved $1.2 million towards the renovation in 1989. [6] The renovations preserved many of the unique features of the original theater, and added considerable new space to the facility. A modern heating and air conditioning system was added. The stage was expanded by the construction of a twelve foot apron, and the original orchestra pit was enlarged to accommodate more complex musical productions. A large two-story wing was added to the building to provide expanded dressing rooms and scenery storage.

As the College of Charleston made improvements to the Sottile Theatre in early 2011, it discovered two large-scale murals hiding beneath acoustic tiles. Painted on canvas by Italian artists from New York City during the theatre's construction in the 1920s, one scene depicts a centaur and nymphs before a forested and mountainous background. The other shows Classical figures celebrating music and drama before a blue-green sea. The murals were unveiled in 1927 during the theatre's grand opening. The College of Charleston has started to restore these masterpieces, already removing one mural for safekeeping and repair. The other mural has been uncovered and left hanging, its blemishes, damage and deterioration on display to theatre patrons, including the audiences of Spoleto Festival USA. Much of the restoration work will involve remediation of the many spots of glue used to attach acoustic tiles to the murals decades ago. [7] [8]

Today

The main auditorium still features a shimmering blue sky-like dome with twinkling stars created from lights above. Side archways are covered with ornamental ironwork and the original domed ceiling is surrounded by a plaster oculus. The stage is framed by a proscenium trimmed with molding. The lobbies were completely renovated and a new second floor lobby was constructed to serve the balconies. The second floor plaza opens onto a covered porch that overlooks George Street.

Today the Sottile Theatre hosts a wide variety of performing art events, serving as the site of College of Charleston performances and programs, as well as many community and privately sponsored events.

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References

  1. ↑ "Building Permits". Evening Post. Charleston, South Carolina. March 2, 1921. p. 2.
  2. ↑ "Charleston SC | Hot Ticket | Charleston Magazine". CHARLESTON SC |. 2017-12-18. Retrieved 2019-04-10.
  3. ↑ "Remodeled Gloria Theater To Reopen". Charleston News & Courier. Apr 1, 1966. pp. 6A. Retrieved November 5, 2013.
  4. ↑ Bradshaw, Laura (Apr 13, 1989). "Restoration of Sottile Theater planned at cost of $8.5 million". Charleston News & Courier. pp. 3B. Retrieved November 5, 2013.
  5. ↑ Nelson, Laura (Apr 3, 1987). "College of Chas. To Get Gloria Theater Frontage". Charleston News & Courier. pp. 2B. Retrieved November 5, 2013.
  6. ↑ Piacente, Steve (Oct 18, 1989). "Legislators approve money for Sottile Theater repairs". Charleston News & Courier. pp. B4. Retrieved November 5, 2013.
  7. ↑ "History of the Sottile Theatre - College of Charleston". sottile.cofc.edu. Retrieved 2017-05-25.
  8. ↑ Behre, Robert. "Sottile's hidden gems: Removal of theater's curtains reveals murals of the seven muses from 1927". Post and Courier. Retrieved 2017-05-25.
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