Restored, reopened Dock Street to set tone for renowned arts festival

One needs three things in the theater, proclaimed British stage actor Kenneth Haigh: the play, the actors and the audience. Each must give something.

He neglected to mention a fourth component, one that lends a heightened sense of gravity. Not a nondescript performance space, mind you, but a theater with echoes of the ghosts of actors and directors past, with a history the equal of the most venerable plays held within.

A space like the Dock Street Theatre.

Its restoration complete, the Dock Street reopens in May with a Spoleto Festival USA production of "Flora," the first opera ever performed in the American Colonies. The celebrated annual international festival of the arts runs May 28-June 13.

"This is a time when we're thinking about those events we produce from scratch, and one thing we are extremely enthusiastic about is going back to the Dock Street Theatre," festival General Director Nigel Redden says in announcing the 2010 schedule. "It seems appropriate to open with the opera that to some extent inspired the theater. Because the season of performances in 1735 was so successful at the original Dock Street, the first purpose-built theater in America, it was repeated in 1736."

The most recent construction was designed to sustain the original Georgian tone. Today, after two renovations, the theater's original 1700s architectural elements still are evoked. The Dock Street will open briefly in March for public tours, then close until the start of Spoleto.

"As plans were being made for renovation, it was exciting to think about going back to the Dock Street, to think about it in terms of what it has meant in Charleston history," Redden adds.

"We wonder what (architect) Albert Simons was thinking about when he rebuilt it (in the 1930s) and how the Charleston Renaissance married the past and the present there, which is part of what Spoleto does," he says. "There is no better place to wed the theatrical past and the tradition of opera and theater in America than in the Dock Street."

Festival highlights

Apart from "Flora," festival highlights include the U.S. premiere of Wolfgang Rihm's opera, "Proserpina"; Geoff Nuttall in his new role as Spoleto Festival USA director for chamber music; the return of Dublin's Gate Theatre in Noel Coward's "Present Laughter"; the Colla Marionette Company's production of Franz Joseph Haydn's marionette opera, "Philemon and Baucis"; the ballet "Giselle," danced by Nina Ananiashvili and the National Ballet of Georgia; the revival of Lucinda Childs' "Dance," a seminal collaboration with Philip Glass and Sol LeWitt; the festival debuts of jazz vocalists Lizz Wright, Norma Winstone and Fabiana Cozza; the U.S. premiere of Daniel MacIvor's "This is What Happens Next"; and the return of festival favorites the Carolina Chocolate Drops, headlining the Festival Finale.

"This year, we decided to do three operas rather than one -- none of them huge -- and perhaps that is a bit of a shift," says Redden. "But each of the three is being done for a particular reason.

"Highly satirical, 'Flora' was a subversive opera in its own day. The production of Haydn's marionette opera, 'Philemon,' represents one of the very few surviving Haydn operas, and there's something absolutely Spoleto-like about that," he says. "Then there's the U.S. premiere of Rihm's opera, 'Proserpina,' which, again, also is quite different. It's the best music, excruciatingly beautiful: lush, romantic and poignant."

One of the more noteworthy aspects of the festival, adds Redden, is that it embodies a certain freedom in what might be done, what ideas might be entertained and executed.

"I don't feel there's been a market shift so much as that the market has come around to our model. What defines this festival, beyond the quality of what we do, is the kind of flexibility and the spectrum of events presented. It works because it's a really good idea."

Redden also fields an obligatory question: Is there a dark horse candidate angling for a breakthrough, some sleeper hit beginning to materialize or something potentially controversial in the offing?

"I wish I could predict that. As always, we expect different things to appeal to different tastes."

Back in the black

In November 2008, Redden announced that for the first time in 13 years, the organization had finished in the red with a deficit of $372,000. But it was back in the black in 2009.

"It wasn't huge, but there was a surplus, and we were able to build some cash reserves. The reason we were in the red in 2008 was that the euro turned against us, and transportation costs went way up. The state also did not give us the line-item money we'd had before, and a number of other costs went up. But this past year we planned on operating in the black, and we did.

"For this year, the euro is doing very badly recently. We sometimes hedge our exposure to exchange rates, and now they may work in our favor. I felt you could not see bottom at the end of 2008, which does not seem to be the case anymore. We know some really wonderful sponsors aren't coming back, which is too bad, but the ones that are have been really terrific in helping, as have our individual donors, who feel more comfortable now about making a commitment."

The Opening Night Fete, to be held immediately following the May 28 performance of Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, will toast the start of the festival with a party in the gardens of the Spoleto headquarters at the Murray Center, 14 George St.

Tickets can be purchased at spoletousa.org or by phone at 579-3100. Beginning April 19, tickets may be purchased at the Spoleto Festival USA box office at the Gaillard Municipal Auditorium.

Reach Bill Thompson at bthompson@postandcourier.com or 937-5707.