Fort Mill Playhouse needs to stage a relocation

After 13 years at its Banks Street location, the Fort Mill Community Playhouse is looking for a new stage for its curtain calls.

The Playhouse has been staging productions at its current home thanks to Leroy Springs and Co., which has allowed the group to use the building on Banks Street in exchange for $1 rent annually, said former Playhouse President Terry Shaw.

The land adjacent to the Playhouse is for sale by LSC. According to a letter sent to the Playhouse board in September 2014, Shaw said, “they hope someone would be interested not only in that land but also all the way to the Playhouse.”

The Playhouse was given 12 months notice to find a new home, Shaw said, and the promise of a month-to-month extension provided the property hadn’t yet sold. Now the Playhouse is on the hunt for a new home and is asking the community for help. Theater officials are looking for land to build on or an existing building that is suitable.

“We need a place that’s large enough, open enough, and something we can afford and use,” said Playhouse board member Joyce Sullivan. “So we’re looking for suggestions.”

Land is expensive, Shaw said, so board members also are considering how they might pay for property or renovations through a grant or corporate donation.

“We’re looking at all these possibilities right now, but we need something that is feasible. We just need a half a million (dollars) at most, to buy land, a building and maybe renovate.”

The Playhouse already has this season’s performances planned, as well as next season’s, but it may have to adjust depending on where they move. If it borrows space until a permanent home is found, that could affect the type of plays it puts on, Sullivan said.

“It’s up in the air, depending on where we are,” she said.

Leroy Springs, in addition to providing a home for the last 13 years, was also instrumental in the creation of the Fort Mill Community Playhouse. Sullivan, a founding member back in the early 1980s, said she recalls that the then-president of LSC, Robert Reid, went to a recreation conference and saw another recreation group perform a play. He came back to Fort Mill excited about the possibility of a performance group in his own town, Sullivan said.

The first Playhouse productions were held under a tent on the soccer fields beside the Leroy Springs Recreation Complex, which were just open fields at the time.

More than 30 years later, the Fort Mill Community Playhouse performs plays and dinner theater and provides summer theater camps for children.

The Playhouse is “a great addition to life,” Sullivan said.

“I think it gives people the opportunity to see a live performance that may not go somewhere else to see one,” she said.

“It gives people interested in performing a place to get involved, either on stage or behind the scenes. It’s entertaining, and it’s fun to see your neighbor in a way you wouldn’t just living next door to them.”

This story was originally published April 17, 2015 at 6:44 PM with the headline "Fort Mill Playhouse needs to stage a relocation."