New Folly Beach Fine Arts Center

Our humble Folly Beach Community Center is poised to become the Folly Fine Arts Center. The plan is to raise the current one-story brown structure on the west side of Center Street, which also holds the Folly branch of the Charleston County Library, and put up a $1.4 million, 10- to-12,000-square-foot facility.

The library would be the first floor, the Fine Arts Center the second. The original vision for the arts center was literally a vision, according to Chris Weatherhead, the theatre company director, who had it while driving on Center Street one day.

Weatherhead and her husband Clarence Felder live in Mariner’s Cay condos just over the bridge from Folly Island. They founded the non-profit Actors’ Theatre of South Carolina in 1994 and have since mounted dozens of shows in theatres all over the Lowcountry. Several have been in the community center, making do in the cramped quarters. The Actors’ Theatre will be the resident theatre company for the new center, just as Charleston Stage Company is the resident theatre company at the Dock Street Theatre.

The Folly Beach Arts and Crafts Guild, a 100-strong group of artists will be the other resident organization. Guild events coordinator Karen Stringer will arrange exhibitions by local artists and special workshops. Music and dance groups also will perform there.

The building will boast an art gallery/lobby, a box office, shop space, scene shop, dressing rooms and concessions, and will be designed to host a variety of events, from experimental film to educational programs to weddings.