The proprietor of the theater was likely the same Mr. ![]() How did the original theater fare? Not well, we’re afraid. The only pieces of this building that are believed to have been part of the original 1736 theater are a few “fragmentary brick walls” ( 9).Ĭirca 1936: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, LC-DIG-csas-03935 It is also important to note that the current auditorium is not yet even 80 years old.ĭating between 19, what we now think of as the Dock Street Theatre was built after the Great Depression under the direction of the WPA, using the 19th-century facade of the former Planters Hotel ( 6) and “remnants of 18th-century buildings that were incorporated into larger nineteenth-century structure” ( 9). ![]() ![]() In actuality, the old theater, which does not appear to have been called Dock Street Theatre but simply “the new theatre in Dock Street,” was predated by a theater built in Williamsburg two decades before ( 8). Pete Lawrence of Sumter, 2014 © Do Not Use Without Written ConsentĪll this being said, the first evidence of an actual theater venue in Charleston – built explicitly for that purpose – dates from another advertisement in the South-Carolina Gazette, published on January 24, 1736, which reads, “On Thursday, the 12th of February, will be opened the new theatre in Dock Street, in which will be performed the comedy call’d ‘The Recruiting Officer'” ( 3).įrom this single source, some have surmised that the Dock Street Theatre “was the first building in America built exclusively to be used for theatrical performances” ( 7).
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