♪ ♪ Hello, I'm Beryl Dakers Welcome to Palmetto Scene.

Warm weather signals festival time here in South Carolina, and we're here at the Columbia International Festival.

Our state is home to some of the most exciting and culturally diverse festivals in the nation, whether it's music art, food, or just plain fun, these festivals are a celebration of our towns, both big and small, and an opportunity to bring communities closer together.

First let's take a look at two very big festivals and two very small towns.

♪ We're here at the Abbeville Spring Festival where folks are out for the first time in over a year, for a little bit of fun and sun.

♪ ♪ ♪ >> So, how was planning for this festival, this year a little different than planning for years past with all the uncertainty about when things can happen?

>> Right.

Obviously, last year, we had to cancel the festival and we did have our Hogs and Hens Festival in October and kind of scaled down and took those added safety measures.

So I think that made us feel more comfortable about having the spring festival this year and then with the numbers going down and people getting more vaccinated we felt comfortable, I know everybody was ready to come out and have some fun this year.

And we're glad to have such a big crowd.

>> As we got closer, we started to solidify the right contracts and sign things, and then we started a market.

We really done that in the past two weeks and the response has been enormous.

We actually have some local vendors out on our square as well as being open in their stores, and you can just tell that they're really excited.

<Desiree> Yeah, that's awesome.

We're here with John Epperly, one of the local artists here.

And I just wanted to get to know exactly how do you make these amazing birdhouses?

>> Well, I started making them about 24 years ago.

Actually, my brother and I've been doing it for a long time.

And I guess it just kind of kept me a kid, kind of have an imagination, trying to be somewhat creative, but being to be able to come out now and being able to, like I said see people, you don't think about it until it's gone.

>> Right.

So, this year, I'm just appreciating things a little more with people coming out.

Even if they don't stop, it's good to people going back and forth, having food and everything else.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> So, Artfields is a 9 day event.

It is a competition for artists from across the southeast, we call the 12 states.

All of the artwork comes down to Lake City, we put it in.

We have over 40 venues this year, so those range from our fine art galleries that we run all the time, to barber shops and restaurants and boutiques.

We give away over a hundred thousand dollars in prizes and will announce those winners on May 1st, and then we have a big finale celebration with music and fireworks at the end.

>> We're here in Lake City for the 2021 Artfields and I'm really excited to be speaking now with Carla Angus, Education and Program Manager of Artfields.

I have to say when I was walking in this building looking at some of the art on the walls, I was expecting to see someone who is you know born in 1950, 1940 something like that and grades 9 through 12.

>> Cool.

Actually, 1st through 12 >> 1st through 12.

>> We're extremely excited.

You know art is truly a reflection of what's going on in today's society.

So, we've had students that have talked about how it is to be home, how to be home schooled instead of going to school, academics.

You can definitely pick up that they know what's going on in the world.

So yes, throughout the room you'll see those themes fly out, but for Artfields junior, we feel like we want to give the students the opportunity to really express themselves in the way they see fit.

>> So, do you have any tips or tricks of the trade for a young artist who's hoping to enter the junior division and do well in this?

>> Well, I'll say definitely take part in it.

Art is important, so let the artist see you.

Be that artist, be who you are and express yourself, because I think art can make a real difference in your life.

>> I think that whenever Artfields was first announced there were a lot of people that were like, "You're going to do what?"

[laughs] You know, "Are you sure this is the place "to have an art festival?

And now I think that people have come to expect it and really embrace it.

I think that within the community, it has become something that people feel a lot of ownership and pride.

>> Raj, tell us about the international festival.

This is now your, technically your 26th year, right?

>> 26th year, but we missed out on the 25th So we're calling it the 25th anniversary because we didn't have the one last year, but people are tired of staying home and most of the people who wanted to get the vaccines are vaccinated.

So they are the people ready to go out and enjoy life.

>> So, tell us about the festival itself.

What is the Columbia International Festival?

It's the celebration of all that makes South Carolina and America the great.

We're the land of the immigrants, even today 200 nationalities are represented, first generation in South Carolina in Columbia.

So we never stopped being an immigrant country.

So, this is a celebration of all that we are as a country and the community.

>> So, tell us what we can actually expect to see here at the festival.

>> You can come and visit at least 60 national exhibits, people wearing their own national costumes, displaying their artifacts, culture and heritage, and also we have International Bazaar.

People come and sell items from different parts of the world, and also we have a food court, international food court that has 16 countries attending.

Because these are the home cooked meals, you don't find them even in the restaurants.

They're family friendly.

No alcohol.

People come here to have just a good time.

>> Next we'll head down to Charleston for a behind the scenes look at what has been billed as the world's most comprehensive arts festival, international in scope and celebrating its 45th season, Spoleto USA is coming out of the pandemic with an even stronger commitment to celebrating excellence through the arts.

♪ ♪ ♪ >> The few weeks before the Spoleto Festival gets started before audience members walk through the doors, we look like ants scurrying all over Charleston.

You will see trucks.

You will see vans.

You will see crew members running around Charleston.

We have theaters to set up.

The Cistern Yard behind me looks like a beautiful park most of the year.

We turned it into a theater with lights, chairs, sound equipment and it takes a huge crew to make that happen.

There's a lot of work that's involved.

We work usually 8 or 9 in the morning till sometimes eleven or twelve at night.

Last night, I was actually here until midnight.

We were focusing all the lights to make sure the artists look great and this is just one venue.

♪ ♪ >> Many shows come with a full physical production.

The shows that we produce specifically the operas, typically do not, so we then have the entire planning phase of the creation of the opera, which can be anywhere from two including logistics and carpentry and maybe some lighting, to up to seven or eight, which includes costumes, which includes wigs, which includes automation, which includes more scenery, so it's just kind of a sliding scale, depending on the scale of the festival itself.

♪ >> This season, we have four venues, which is a little bit reduced, thanks to COVID, but we're making it happen.

We have crews at the Cistern on the College of Charleston campus.

We have a crew working at the newly renamed Festival Hall, down on Main Street.

We have a crew at the Dock Street Theatre, which happens to be my favorite venue in the city, and we have a crew working at the brand new venue for Spoleto this year, River's Green, which is where the dance companies will be performing.

Rivers green is a theater we are building, absolutely from scratch.

It is normally a park, behind the library on the College of Charleston campus, and we are building the stage.

We are building the lights.

We are building the sound, where nothing used to exist before.

Rivers Green, which is one of our outdoor venues, this year, and that's actually what he's working on behind us, which is some of the final brick facades of the stage that we're building over there.

Ultimately, Nigel wanted something that sort of was more impressive than just some troughs sticking out of the ground, right.

He wanted something that looks a little more substantial, but also that was at the quality that our audience expects, right.

We could have very easily done what many of the other festivals in town do, which is do, the sort of, like least expensive option.

He wanted to make sure that he was investing in the sort of experience of the aesthetic quality of what we're going for.

>> What we need here for what we do, for what it does is that we need a portfolio of it.

We need them to be different from one another, so you don't feel if you go from one to another that you're just going to another dark space, another place with a preceding arch.

>> We're been hired a set designer, a stage designer to sort of help sculpt what the architecture might look like of that stage typically we're inside of a venue and we're designing the little set that goes inside of that venue.

In this case, we were designing the entire venue, right.

So we had to deal with the audience riser system and we had to engineer how we're going to achieve that.

There's actually a fountain under the stage at Rivers Green that we're not allowed to touch, so we had to engineer a system that was built up and cantilevered over the fountains, so that we don't harm the fountain, with a fully you know functioning stage on top of it.

♪ The goal is for our audience ultimately to have the best, you know, experience that they can have and a lot of that comes down to very like small psychological things, like comfort level, right.

If they're sitting in a venue and it's just a bunch of scaffolding and a bunch of metal sticking out of the ground, it can feel a little brutal one might say, right, but when we're creating sort of like a warmth that they can sort of forget themselves inside of, it really gives them the opportunity to focus on what's happening on stage, as opposed to being distracted by all the things that seemingly shouldn't be around about them at the time.

For the Cistern Yard, for instance.

Behind me, you'll see the stage that we set up on top of the historic Cistern, but our backdrop, the reason that we do shows here is Randolph Hall.

It is a beautiful building here on the College of Charleston campus, and we light it to be the backdrop for our jazz shows and for our bands.

That is the reason people come to this yard to see shows and to hear the music here in this venue.

And we light it so it looks stunning at night, and that's also the reason, we don't do shows until 9 PM.

So, the lights show beautifully on that building.

We put the stage right in front of it.

We set up the lights and sound, and it's the most stunning backdrop that we can think of in the entire city to do our concerts here.

When jazz companies or bands come to perform, they usually bring some of their instruments with them, like especially if they've got a favorite Stratocaster or a Fender guitar, they will bring those with them, but we provide them with pianos.

We have a great relationship with a music company here in town, called Fox Music, and we also bring in Steinway pianos from New York.

We take care of all the pianos.

We have them delivered to the stage.

We have them tuned multiple times a day, and then we leave them here on the stage at night.

We cover them.

We tarp them and they stay as long as they need to on this stage, and then the next day, we come out, we uncover them.

We have them tuned again, multiple times a day, so they were always here, and always ready for the artists whenever we need them, and then when they're done, we move them to the next venue.

So, pianos get moved all around town, all day long.

You'll see trucks all in the streets moving pianos from one venue to the next.

I've worked with hundreds of opera singers, and dozens and dozens of dance companies.

So many of them have told us that these venues here in Charleston are some of their favorites.

The newly redesigned Gaillard Center is this gorgeous space now with beautiful acoustics.

They can sing in that space all day long.

♪ The Dock Street Theater is such a beautiful, intimate space to sing in.

The outside is stunning with the wrought iron railings.

The inside, just is the most beautiful, quaint setting for any performance you'd ever want to watch.

>> Geoff Nuttall, who runs the Chamber music program, has said relatively often that he gets more of an audience here in 17 days than they might get for the rest of the year.

A single program, which is repeated three times might get an audience of 15 hundred.

For chamber music, that's not typical.

♪ >> Nicole Taney who is our Director of Artistic Planning and Operations, largely sculpts the program for the festival and picks the shows that you know they want to bring in.

Nigel Redden, of course, our General Director has a heavy hand in that and basically has all the veto power that he wants.

And then once they've sort of crafted what they want the festival to look like then it comes to us, for sort of a technical review and then we start moving into the more sort of nuts and bolts of everything.

>> Sometimes you invite an artist and they say no, and then you keep going.

One, I was really eager to preserve production, that you remember, Salome, the play, and I wanted to do it, and the director said, "Oh yes.

Well, I think we can work this out, and then he stopped returning my phone calls.

And I called and left messages and so I went to Dublin and sat on the doorstep, and figured that he would have to walk over me and so he, because I sat on the doorstep, he bought the play.

There is a significant investment and aesthetic and sort of standard quality, right.

There is no - there's never been a moment where I've heard anyone say, "Ehh, that's good enough.

It's always, "Can we do better?

Can we try a little harder," but it's a constant dialogue about budget, right, because we're always working against what we can afford, that's always been a, We can't afford that.

Let's figure out how to afford that.

And let's put the work in to see if we can engineer out the costs another way, so that we can achieve what we ultimately want to achieve from the aesthetic side of things.

You fall because you didn't risk enough.

You didn't push the envelope hard enough, and you didn't put enough on stage and so the audience, thinks this is not worth doing.

Well, the artists think it's not worth doing, or the staff thinks it's not worth doing, or the critics think it's not worth doing, and so it's a risk if you don't push, and you don't push as hard as you can.

>> Most of us only get to see each other once a year.

For this seven weeks, we come together and we truly are a family.

The crews that work together generally work together only at the Spoleto Festival and then once the festivals over, we go back to our home towns.

We go off to other jobs.

So, that first day that we all got to see each other, there have been a lot of hugs, a lot of vaccinated hugs, but a lot of hugs and it was incredible.

It was incredible to be able to do what we love to do, and to do it as a family, because Spoleto really is a family.

>> What Spoleto has done is to stretch people's taste, and allow people to explore their taste.

We still can challenge audiences.

I think we do still challenge audiences.

And I think we will continue.

I hope we will continue to challenge audiences.

♪ >> And finally this tribute.

Known as the energetic and vibrant voice of Sebastion from Disney's The Little Mermaid, Samuel E. Wright entertained audiences from around the world through the characters he created.

This two-time Tony-nominated actor and Camden, South Carolina native recently died at age 74, but we got the chance to talk with Wright when he visited his hometown back in 2018.

Let's take a look now at his life and his legacy.

♪ The seaweed is always greener in somebody else's ♪ >> Sebastian, the Jamaican accented crab from Disney's The Little Mermaid , made a splash when he came onto the big screen in 1989.

The voice that brought Sebastian to life was Samuel E. Wright.

My agent says, "I got an audition for you."

"Go in and you're going to play this Sammy Davis Jr.

role."

So I get sent to this audition.

I said, "Can I pick this song up a little bit?"

Because originally Sebastian was a turtle, and it was a ballad type thing.

So he said, "Sure.

Kick it up a notch."

♪ Under the sea.

Under the sea.

♪ By the time, is was finished, I'd finished Under The Sea , I was standing on top of the table, they looked at me and gave me the obligatory, "Yes.

Well, don't call us" - they did really say that, "we'll call you."

My agent called me and said, "Ha.

You're working for Disney what you've always wanted to do" "You're working for Disney" 'So, what am I doing?'

He said, "You're playing the role of a crab."

In The Little Mermaid , he's that little calypso crab."

And I went "Whoa."

So, it took five years to make The Little Mermaid , all drawing, one frame after another, and so we got very creative and The Little Mermaid was born to all our chagrins because we never, never, never had any inkling that it was going to be famous.

>> Do people stop you in airports and say - ?

>> Oh, yes, especially the voice if they hear the voice, they hear my voice and they say, "that voice sounds really familiar", or they stop and ask me, "Were you on America's Most Wanted "or something?"

>> Samuel Wright's story began in 1946 in Camden, South Carolina.

>> Growing up in Camden, South Carolina has two sides to it for me.

There was a group of people in Camden who wanted me to succeed, family, friends, community, who somehow saw something.

There was another group of people that thought I was a bit uppity about even trying to do that kind of thing, because I mean, come on a little black boy from a southern community small town, I'm going to go to Hollywood and make it big.

So everybody kind of looked down on it like, Get a job and get over it.

I had a roommate.

His name was with Lennell Brooks, wonderful fellow, and he just got sick of it, one night.

And my roommate is just laying there and I'm just bragging about what I'm going to become, and he said "Let me tell you something.

"You're not going to do anything.

"You're not going to do anything.

You don't have the guts."

So I said, "Are you serious?"

And he said, "Yeah!"

And I said, "I'm packing my bags."

"You're going to take me to the train station now."

And he said, "Come on."

I thought he was going to say, never mind.

So, I got on the bus thinking Okay, I'll get to the next town, come back to school.

I fell asleep and ended up in Port Authority in New York.

I thought New York was underground, because Port Authority was underground.

I didn't know you came out into a city.

I had no idea.

I looked in the newspaper.

"Oh!

Auditions for Jesus Christ Superstar, big Broadway show.

"I'm going to go do that."

So, there's a line, three blocks long, with all these hopefuls with their songs and I would stand there and they'd send me out and I'd come out to the middle of the stage.

Tell them my name, just like I told you and they would say, they were discussing - So, they just typed me out, right away.

"Thank you."

And off I went.

I went, 'Oh no you didn't.'

So, I started coming back, and I'd come back, and I'd come back, and they'd throw me out, they'd throw me out.

It got to the point, where they had like authority and that had to come and drag me off the stage as soon as they saw me, and they'd go, "That's him.

Get him."

He said, "Who are you?"

And they'd say, "don't, just, don't talk to him."

"He's some homeless guy, who keeps coming here "and we have to throw him out."

And he said, "What does he want to do?"

And he'd say, "He wants to sing."

"Well, can he sing?"

"We don't know."

We never let him sing" "We just threw him out."

So Tom said, "Sing."

So, I sung Happy birthday.

and he smiled and he said, "Thank you."

And I left.

Somebody ran up to me on the street and said, "Are you that guy" 'What guy?"

He said, "Sam Wright" So I said, 'Yeah.'

And he said, "Tom O'Horgan "has been looking for you for weeks."

So I get there, "You've got the job."

"Welcome to Broadway."

Welcome to Broadway, baby.

And that's how you become a Broadway baby.

And from that point on, I ended up doing Judas.

I ended up doing Peter.

I ended up doing Caiaphas.

I ended up doing just about everybody that they said, "Can you do this?

Can you do this?

Can you do this?"

But I decided I didn't want to be a waiter.

I didn't want to be a bus driver.

I didn't want to be cabdriver in between.

I was going to be an actor.

>> Wright held roles in The Tap Dance Kid , Disney's The Lion King on Broadway, various other theater productions and television roles on Law and Order, The Cosby Show, Enos and many more.

He also went on to be nominated for two Tony awards and the variety of others for roles in other productions.

>> Everything the light touches is our kingdom.

>> Spreading his love for theater, Wright founded the Hudson Valley Conservatory in New York, a performing arts school that offers classes in theater for youth in the community.

>> Look at all these lovely faces.

A lot of people in here I know, from my school days.

>> In 2018, Wright returned to his hometown, and received various awards for his efforts in the community.

>> Saturday, April 21, 2018 as Samuel E. Wright day.

[Applause] >> And the rest, as they say, is history.

♪ For more stories about our state and more details on those stories you've just seen, do visit our website at palmettoscene.org.

And of course don't forget to follow us on social media, whether Facebook, Twitter or Instagram at SCETV #palmettoscene.

For all of us here at Palmetto Scene, I'm Beryl Dakers.

Good night and thanks for watching.

♪ Hey Scott Biering here at Bee City, Bee City Zoo and Honey Bee Farm.

I want to tell you a little bit about what we do here or how we got started.

We got started my dad retired from the Naval Shipyard.

His name is Archie Biering and my mother Diane Biering and him started playing around with some bee hives, painting them up.

We had some bee hives then, but they started painting some of those bee hives up like buildings.

Big bee, Wig bees, Glory Bee Baptist Church Applebee's, Bee P. station, Yes and the pun is definitely intended in all of them.

Next door, we have a bird aviary.

That was one of the things I heard all my life, about my grandfather, my dad's dad, I didn't really get to know him.

He was gone before I came along.

After I bought it I told him that I was wanting to build a bird aviary.

Out of all the stuff we have, they get to go there in that, with those parakeets and you see smiles on everybody's faces, not everybody.

There are more than two that have a fear of birds, but a lot of healing powers these animals do give.

People don't, some people might not get it, most people do.

You can see things.

I have stories of people who go in there that those birds have brought them out of some serious stuff in their life, and just the animals in general.

So, it's really cool to be a part of that.