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A Conversation With Joseph P. Riley, Jr.
Mayor of City of Charleston, South Carolina
Question: Mayor Riley, you've been involved with Spoleto Festival USA from its first days in Charleston in 1977. Can you comment on the impact of the Festival on Charleston, and vice-versa? Have the two come together, as Gian Carlo Menotti had hoped, to create an "ideal city"?
Joseph P. Riley, Jr.: As we understood from the beginning, Spoleto Festival USA is something that permeates the city. That's why the scale of the city and its beauty, the tempo of life, were so important. The idea wasn't to have a few events in one building, where people put on their fancy dresses and tuxedos. Rather, it was to be a festival where the arts become a part of the fabric of the city's life. And it has been an extraordinary success. I believe this Festival could serve as a national model of private and public partnership, and a living example of how the arts can revitalize a community.
Q: Can you tell us specifically how the Festival has revitalized Charleston?
JPR: The Festival has been contemporaneous with Charleston's commercial revitalization. Since the Festival began, the city's annual visitation has increased threefold. The Festival now brings $42 million directly into Charleston each year. Through a ripple effect, its annual economic impact is estimated to be more than $100 million. We've now had half a billion dollars of investment and reinvestment in our downtown since 1977, of preserving and renovating our historic buildings, of seeing shops and restaurants and hotels flourish. The result is that Charleston is more beautiful than it's ever been.
Q: Do you feel the impact of the Festival goes beyond dollars and cents?
JPR: Without question. The Festival gives Charleston a priceless opportunity to show itself to the world, and it brings the richness of the world's art and the world's people to our streets and sidewalks. That's the finest revitalization that any city can have.
Q: Mayor Riley, you also witnessed the disputes that led to Gian Carlo Menotti's departure from Charleston in 1993. Can you give us your impressions of that transition?
JPR: I had been greatly worried about the transition for years before that. It was going to happen. It would happen either because Gian Carlo decided to leave or else because of infirmity or death, which come to us all. I always worried, because I knew the Festival was perfect for Charleston, and that it would be a huge loss to our city and to the art world in general if the Festival disappeared from our streets. Frankly, I had hoped the transition would happen on my watch, so I could help Charleston and the Festival get past that difficult period. Now we have done just that. I say it with enormous relief and pride--we have done it. The Festival's future is assured.
Q: What did the city contribute to the effort to keep the Festival in Charleston? And what was your role?
JPR: The city helped in a number of ways. At a time when money was scarce, we were able to provide the Festival with a source of direct funding that was worth close to $100,000. We also wrote off expenses that the Festival owed us, as we should. In addition, we held the Piccolo Spoleto Festival as we do every year, which contributes to the celebratory atmosphere that people expect when they attend Spoleto Festival USA.
As for my own efforts, I see it as my role to be there for the Festival whenever they need me. I just try to make myself available to the Festival's wonderful board of directors and to its general manager, Nigel Redden. It's through their efforts that the Festival achieves such great success.
Q: You just mentioned the celebratory atmosphere that people feel in Charleston during the Festival, and how the city's own Piccolo Spoleto Festival contributes to it. Is this "ideal city" just a Potemkin village, as skeptics might think? Or is there really something behind it?
JPR: It's real. You see, we're very proud of the mingling of the citizens and the Festival's artists. As we see it, the Festival is not an elite series of events, but rather it becomes the city, and the city becomes the Festival. We have all worked hard to make sure that the Festival touches everyone.
That goes back to the first chairman of the board of the Festival, Theodore Stern, who suggested that we hold the opening ceremonies in front of City Hall. They're not held in an auditorium, where you pay admission. They happen in the open air in this wonderful historic district, with the streets closed to traffic, and hundreds upon hundreds of people come. It's a civic event, attended by people from every walk of life. That's the sort of thing that gives Charlestonians the feeling that this Festival belongs to them all.
Q: How does the community demonstrate its support?
JPR: The doors are open. When the musicians are walking down the street, maybe coming from a rehearsal, maybe going to a concert in their formal outfits with their instruments in their hands, you'll hear the citizens saying to them, "We really enjoyed the concert last night," or "It's great to have you here." There's a real feeling of welcoming and involvement.
Q: Again, a skeptic might think that sort of mingling happens in the Historic District, but not in the outlying neighborhoods.
JPR: It's certainly true that the Festival is concentrated in the city's center. But the Festival makes efforts to reach into and involve every part of Charleston, and our citizens have responded with warmth and appreciation. One of the main reasons Nigel Redden organized the Places with a Past exhibition in 1991 was to make sure that people in various neighborhoods were touched by the Festival. The artists and the artworks actually came to them, and in many cases citizens from those neighborhoods were drawn into the process of creation. We were very pleased with our involvement in 1997 with the Human/Nature exhibition.
Q: When you speak with the mayors of other cities, do you talk about how Charleston and the Festival work together? Do you feel it's a model relationship?
JPR: Spoleto Festival USA has been inspirational to many cities and to many mayors as an example of how the arts can bring about economic revitalization. Of course, there is no other festival that has had such a great impact on a city. But through its example, Spoleto Festival USA has encouraged cities to believe that the arts are developmental, that the arts are not just frills or niceties, that the arts can make cities better and stronger and more economically vibrant. Cities all over are developing arts districts or arts centers, and in large part they have this Festival to thank, because it has shown mayors and city councils that if we invest more in the arts, we will get a high return in terms of the economic and physical and social development of our cities.