Spartanburg’s Home for Arts, Culture, and SO much more!
Chapman Cultural Center is Spartanburg’s one-stop shop for arts and cultural events, performances, exhibits, and educational programming in Spartanburg County. If you’re unfamiliar with the center, it features a variety of independent museums, galleries, and other cultural organizations located inside the three-building campus. From live reptiles at Spartanburg Science Center and the Center for Dance Education at Ballet Spartanburg to performances and thought-provoking exhibits of Spartanburg Little Theatre, Spartanburg Philharmonic, and Spartanburg Art Museum, you can experience it all at Chapman Cultural Center!
This year, we are excited to say that many of the arts and cultural experiences are safely returning for the public to enjoy once again. Below are just a few of the arts and cultural experiences that will be taking place.
Artists’ Guild of Spartanburg will feature another year of monthly local artist exhibitions!
This year the Artists’ Guild of Spartanburg is also proud to offer The Judy and Brant Bynum Art Award for 2022. Thanks to the generosity of Judy and Brant Bynum, the amount of the award has increased from $500 to $1,000! This award is offered annually to rising college juniors majoring in Fine Art (2D or 3D) at a college or university in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Accepting applications beginning February 1, 2022. The deadline to apply is April 29, 2022, at 5 PM. For details, please visit: www.artistsguildspartanburg.org/awards
Ballet Spartanburg will present An Evening with Carlos Agudelo on March 24th and 25th.
Join Ballet Spartanburg for a beautiful evening highlighting ballets from their 2020 collaboration with the Hub City Writers Project. The evening will include champagne, chocolate, and toasts to the visionary excellence that Artistic Director, Carlos Agudelo, has shared through dance with our community and beyond for over 30 years.
Chapman Cultural Center is ecstatic to announce the 8th annual Spartanburg Soaring! International Kite Festival will be on October 8th, 2022! Stay tuned for more details and updates of the festival coming in the Fall!
Spartanburg Art Museum will present their upcoming exhibition, Black Anatomy from February 17th through June 30th. This dynamic exhibition features artists who bring intimate and charged bodies of work that represent their present-day voices while simultaneously keeping a toe dipped in the waters of their collective past experiences. Sculptures, installations, paintings, and drawings illustrate their shared understanding of the Black experience in contemporary culture and reveal work that unfolds in tones of universal truths.
Spartanburg Little Theatre will present The Great Gatsby on March 4 through 13!
Jay Gatsby, a self-made millionaire, passionately pursues the elusive Daisy Buchanan. Nick Carraway, a young newcomer to Long Island, is drawn into their world of obsession, greed, and danger. The breathtaking glamour and decadent excess of the Jazz Age come to the stage in Simon Levy’s adaptation of the classic F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, approved by the Fitzgerald Estate.
Spartanburg Philharmonic will present Awakened: Classical Music’s Original Influencers on Friday, February 18 at 6:30pm (Happy Hour starts at 5:30pm).
Influencers aren’t just on social media telling people what to buy. In classical music, the original influencers were named Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven and their mastery continues to inspire composers even today. Join us for a musical exploration of new and familiar composers, and the spark that ignited their creativity. Who knows, maybe one piece will inspire your own muse.
Spartanburg Youth Theatre will present Disney’s Freaky Friday the Musical on February 11th through 13th.
Based on the novel Freaky Friday by Mary Rodgers and the Disney films, when a super-organized mother and her spontaneous teenage daughter magically swap bodies, they have just one day to figure out how to break the spell and switch back. By spending a day in each other’s shoes, Katherine and Ellie come to appreciate one another in a way they never could have imagined. Based on the beloved 1972 novel by Mary Rodgers and the hit Disney Channel Original movie, this heartfelt and hilarious new musical explores the true power of love and the strength of the bond between a mother and daughter.
However, Chapman Cultural Center is more than a destination, the organization serves as Spartanburg County’s leading Local Arts Agency, as we advocate for the arts to ensure they are relevant and supported in the public and private sector. We provide support for both organizations and artists so Spartanburg County can continue to enjoy high-quality cultural experiences.
As a grantor, we typically provide more than $500,000 in annual General Operating Support grants to arts, science, and humanities-based non-profit organizations. In addition, we provide quarterly grants up to $5,000 to Spartanburg County creatives and non-profits to expand arts and cultural experiences to broader audiences.
Chapman Cultural Center also facilitates community vibrancy by encouraging diverse offerings, growing audience engagement, and measuring support for the arts. Our cultural leadership extends to the oversight of the Spartanburg Downtown Cultural District, by providing street music and public art programming that enhances the vibrant downtown experience. It also fosters and celebrates the arts in the unique neighborhoods and towns in Spartanburg County.
One of our most recent initiatives includes the Southern Studies Fellowship in Arts and Letters in conjunction with the Hub City Writers Project and the Watson Brown Foundation. The Southern Studies Fellowship is a first-of-its-kind program that brings one early-career artist and one early-career writer to Spartanburg, South Carolina, for a nine-month fellowship of research, creativity, teaching, and travel, culminating in a collaborative project informed by the South. Fellows Ben Winans and Morgan Thomas’ final presentation on May 12th, from 6 to 9pm, will consist of a multimedia presentation of their research. Using the ritual of baptism as a device to explore Southern evangelical Christianity, ecological toxicity, and gender fluidity.
Finally, we are excited to continue our work and especially look forward to welcoming our new President and CEO, Dan Mayer. Mayer brings over 20 years of leadership experience in various roles in the arts and cultural sector including his work as an attorney through the country’s largest pro bono art and entertainment law organization in New York City. Additionally, he has served in numerous executive and advisory roles across the nation including the Spectrum Dance Theater, Photographic Center Northwest, and Seattle Jewish Film Festival. We look forward to his leadership as he progresses the future of arts and cultural experiences in Spartanburg County.
We hope you will take a trip to Spartanburg soon and experience all that the Chapman Cultural Center has to offer. See what other experiences you can enjoy at chapmanculturalcenter.org.