Curtain time: Public sees historic SC theater

The public is getting a chance to see the $18 million renovation of a South Carolina theater on the site of the nation's first playhouse.

Charleston Mayor Joseph P. Riley on Thursday cuts the ribbon that officially reopens the Dock Street Theatre.

The original Dock Street Theatre was built in 1736 and was the nation's first. It burned down and several other buildings, including a hotel, occupied the site over the centuries.

The existing building was renovated as a theater in the 1930s by the federal Works Progress Administration.

During Thursday's opening, the Charleston Symphony Orchestra String Quartet plays a musical piece performed when the theatre reopened in 1937 after the earlier renovation.