With its origins rooted in 1923, the Florence Little Theater has played a key role in the cultural arts life of the community for generations. It has evolved over time, occupying different performance venue while providing an unbroken series of dramatic seasons and establishing itself firmly in the fabric of the community. During the preparation of a comprehensive downtown revitalization strategy in the early 2000’s, Principal Ernest Bleinberger worked with theater officials to create a plan for relocation of the theater form its suburban location into the heart of downtown Florence.
The plan came to include the development of another major cultural venue – the Francis Marion Performing Arts Center – also located in downtown Florence. A strategic decision was made to co-locate both performance facilities on the same key site, thus increasing the synergistic impact of the cultural arts on the entire downtown area.
The new Flornce Little Theater occupies a place of honor in the downtown, located next to the Francis Marion Performing Arts Center, thus creating a synergistic critical mass that has spurred an award-winning revitalization effort. The striking architecture and attention to interior detail have made the theater a worthy inheritor of a rich historical presence in the Florence community.