In May 1998, Carolina’s Center for Dramatic Art opened to the public. The $10.8 million project was completed with state appropriations totaling $9.4 million, supplemented by private funds.
One of those private gifts came from Betty Kenan, whose late husband, Frank H. Kenan, left $1 million to Carolina in his will, with the stipulation that his wife would name the beneficiary within the University. She chose the department of dramatic art.
The Center was the first on campus to consolidate all rehearsal, performance, technical, teaching and administrative operations of the department of dramatic art and its PlayMakers Repertory Company, bringing it from seven sites into one facility. The 40,000 square-foot addition expanded on the 500-seat Paul Green Theatre, built in 1976, and added a costume shop, a rehearsal hall, acting studios, traditional classrooms, a new box office and reception area, and the 265-seat Elizabeth Price Kenan Theatre (named for Betty Kenan) for student productions.
The first production staged in the new Center in 1998 was Having Our Say, which broke PlayMakers’ records for single-ticket sales and group bookings. Now, PlayMakers puts on nine productions a year for a total audience of more than 55,000, including more than 4,000 school-aged children served by the Center’s educational programming. In the 2015-16 season, PlayMakers is presenting Peter and the Starcatcher, a play by Rick Elice; the Anton Chekhov play Three Sisters; and The Real Americans by Dan Hoyle.
Carolina has a long and rich theatrical history spanning nearly a century of playmaking. In 1918, Professor Frederick Koch founded the Carolina Playmakers, a touring group of actors and playwrights that quickly became notable. He also began teaching a course of study in the theatre arts, leading to the establishment in 1936 of the second oldest theater department in the country. In 1925, Smith Hall was converted into Playmakers Theatre, becoming the first state university building in the nation dedicated to dramatic art.
The Carolina Playmakers flourished over the next half century and by 1975 had re-organized as PlayMakers Repertory Company, a professional LORT (League of Resident Theatres) theater. Distinguished by its educational mission, the department of dramatic art trained many artists of national stature, including Richard Adler, Michael Cumpsty, Billy Crudup, Louise Fletcher, Paul Green, Andy Griffith, George Grizzard, Jeffrey Hayden, Kay Kyser, Sharon Lawrence, Shepperd Strudwick, and Thomas Wolfe. Its graduates include winners of Academy, Tony and Emmy Awards, as well as the Pulitzer Prize.
