Dedication ceremony on tap for the Rose Maree Myers Theater for the Performing Arts

At 7 p.m. Friday, the Charleston County School of the Arts will celebrate the dedication of the Rose Maree Myers Theater for the Performing Arts on the new campus at 5109 W. Enterprise St., North Charleston. The evening will include a keynote speech by 2009 National Book Award winner in fiction, Colum McCann.

The event will celebrate the opening of the theater as well as the legacy of Myers, who founded both Ashley River Creative Arts Elementary in 1984 and the School of the Arts in 1995. Myers' contribution to arts education in Charleston is immeasurable, and she started both schools from scratch, fighting enumerable obstacles along the way. During her eleven years as principal at Ashley River, the school received the Elizabeth O'Neill Verner Award, a Blue Ribbon, and was recognized by the Kennedy Center and the National Endowment for the Arts. During her twelve years at SOA, the school received an "excellent" rating every year on the School Report Card and was consistently ranked among the top performing schools in the nation academically, not to mention the quality of the artists it has continued to produce. Myers served as an international consultant for schools hoping to imitate her success, traveling to more than forty states and China.

The dedication ceremony will include performances from current as well as former student and faculty artists and tributes from a variety of regional and nationally known artists and arts advocates who have been in some way connected to Myers and her work. Among the performers will be hip-hop violinist Daniel Davis, Jazz trumpeter Charlton Singleton, singer-songwriter John Cusatis, the SOA Symphony Orchestra, and others. Short tributes will delivered by Army Wives star Richard Bryant, novelist Beth Webb Hart, Mayor Keith Summey, and others. Blue Bicycle Books, one of the event's sponsors, will have copies of McCann's and Hart's novels available to be purchased for signing during a reception that will follow in the theater lobby at approximately 9 p.m. Davis's CDs will be available for purchase and signing as well.

Tickets, which will be limited to 600, are free. Donations will be collected for the new Rose Maree Myers Scholarship for Academic and Artistic Achievement.

For more information and a complete list of guest performers and speakers, please visit www.cusatis.com.