Little Theatre, Big Culture

The location of this "Little Theatre" has had a dramatic impact on Greenville's cultural scene, first as the David M. Ramsey Fine Arts Center, and afterward as the current theatre space.

The Greenville Women’s College had a significant nineteenth century past, but struggled to expand its small campus because of Post-World War I debt. When the finances of GWC were in order by 1922, the college saw the completion of its major arts venue and theatre. The building was named for David Ramsey, a president, chairman, and a promoter of “the ideals of womanhood.” Judy Bainbridge’s book Academy and College emphasizes Ramsey did not want significant public attention for himself after the building's completion. He wanted the emphasis to be on the students, who were the “creative force of modern civilization.”

The Fine Arts Center became the focal point of the Greenville Women’s College, as it allowed the students to immerse themselves in music and arts. Yearly bulletins passed out in the 1920s to Greenville Women’s College Alumni highlighted the success of the programs. In 1927, one of the bulletins described the variety of classes in piano, voice, violin, organ, and art techniques. The building's 6000 square feet gave plenty of room not only for GWC talent, but also most major productions in the Greenville area. Before the Memorial Auditorium or Peace Center, this was the site of the Upstate's biggest plays and concerts.

By the 1960s, the Greenville Women’s College had merged with Furman University, which was in the process of moving its campus eight miles north of Downtown Greenville. Plans to tear down the buildings of the GWC were discussed by Furman President John Plyler and other Greenville city officials and board members, including C. Thomas Whythe. Whythe, the President of the Board of the Directors of the Greenville Little Theatre, fought preservationists who did not want to see the destruction of the GWC because of the college’s storied history. However, Furman needed the money to pay for its new campus and sold the land to the city of Greenville. Whythe could proceed with demolition plans. The David Ramsey Fine Arts Center, one of the newest and most beautiful buildings on the site, serving the entire community, was the first to be destroyed in 1964. What a shame!

Although we can mourn the loss of this important building, the Greenville Little Theatre deserves its own praise as an organization that now claims the spot. Built in 1967, this venue has provided theater-goers with light comedies, mysteries and golden age musicals for generations, with performances in the same spot where local theatre got its start more than 90 years ago.

If you can get access, go inside and look at the wooden ceiling. Notice its layered and intricate design, which allows for exceptional acoustics. Sound travels well throughout the space and also makes it difficult for sound to leave. Executive director Allen McCalla says, “There can be an ambulance going past on College Street and you can’t hear it.”

Perhaps more important than the current building is the group who uses it. In the 1920s, cities around the country opened little community theatres. In 1926, 75 Greenville residents gathered at the library to meet with representatives of the Town Theatre in Columbia, S.C. to hear about ways to start their own theatre. It took just a few months before the Greenville Artists Guild held its first performance, “The 12 Pound Look” in the Ramsay Fine Arts Auditorium. Two years later, in 1928, the group named itself the Community Little Theatre on its way to becoming the Greenville Little Theatre. It produced four shows a year around town, but mostly at this site in the old auditorium (“History of Greenville Little Theatre”).

This theatre has overcome obstacles in the past 50 years. After the death of the artistic director, combined with some financial problems, the theatre was in debt and losing subscribers in the late 1980s and early 1990s. However, in the past 25 years, attendance has grown from 24,000 to more than 70,000 annual patrons (“History of Greenville Little Theatre”). One patron named Martha Power bequeathed $410,000 to the Greenville Little Theatre in the fall of 2017, because of her love for the theatre (Landrum).

Even with the success of other Greenville theatres, such as The Warehouse Theatre and Centre Stage SC, the Greenville Little Theatre has still managed to consistently bring in visitors for family entertainment. It now produces six full-length main stage productions, three concert shows, at least one studio production and plays for young audiences each year.

If you're still nostalgic for the beautiful old David Ramsey Fine Arts Center, though, you can find its bricks in the fountain circle in front of the Lakeside Dorm Complex, on Furman's "new" campus. Whether in bricks or continued theatre productions on the same ground, we can still feel the historical legacies of David M. Ramsey and his students.

Sources

Furman University Special Collections. "Vol. XXV, No. 4 Bulletin of Greenville Women’s College Fine Arts Department." (1927)

Judith T. Bainbridge, Academy and College: the History of the Woman's College of Furman University. Mercer University Press, 2001.

“Heritage Green Evolved since 1819 Donation.” Greenville News, 26 Mar. 2014.

“History.” Greenville Little Theatre. 11 Oct. 2017.

Cindy Landrum, “The Greenville Little Theatre Receives an Extraordinary Gift.” Greenville Journal, 11 Oct. 2017.