Koger Center for the Arts: 2025 S.C. Arts Awards Spotlight Series
Governor’s Award: Government Category
As the day nears for the 2025 South Carolina Arts Awards, The Hub is shining the spotlight on this year’s six recipients, introducing them to you in greater detail.
This is the schedule:
- Governor’s Award for the Arts
- April 29: Dr. Gail V. Barnes (Individual Category)
- Today: Koger Center for the Arts (Government Category)
- May 6: Wade Sellers (Artist Category)
- May 8: Engaging Creative Minds (Arts in Education Category)
- May 13: Sumter County Gallery of Art (Organization Categoy)
- Jean Laney Harris Folk Heritage Award
- May 15: Caroleen Sanders (Artist Category)
Koger Center for the Arts
The Koger Center for the Arts at the University of South Carolina supports exceptional art by hosting and presenting transformational experiences that enlighten, educate, entertain and inspire while fostering the economic vitality of South Carolina. We are committed to being an asset to our entire community. The Koger Center adds value to people’s lives by providing opportunities for creative programming, new experiences and education all while providing the best possible patron experience. We celebrate human imagination by inspiring excitement and passion in the arts through the integration of the facility and its programming into the daily life of the community.
As we look forward, we strive to nurture the development of a dynamic and diverse local arts community while presenting premier artists in exceptional performances accessible to all members of the public. We promote cultural awareness through the arts as a means of expressing human concerns and values and serve as a fine arts laboratory to enhance classroom experiences and educate students and the public about the presentation of art and artists. The Koger Center stimulates local growth and economic development through the attraction of business and tourism by enhancing South Carolina’s overall quality of life.
Since our inception as the first modern arts center of our kind in South Carolina, the Koger Center has hosted major national and international touring artists, strengthening the region’s ability to attract acclaimed productions and luminaries from around the globe. From the very beginning, the University of South Carolina made it clear that local community needs would be addressed by establishing a mission of inclusion to support the programming and technical requirements of local arts organizations. Through this communal approach, the Koger Center for the Arts has enhanced the surrounding community by increasing public awareness and understanding of the arts. Planned as a home to all the arts, the Koger Center houses a large permanent display of visual art as well as a revolving series of art exhibits in several gallery spaces. The opening on January 14, 1989, changed the cultural landscape of the South Carolina and continues to inspire diverse audiences to discover the special magic and sheer joy made possible through all the arts.
The 2,256 seat Koger Center for the Arts main auditorium is used regularly by local performing arts organizations, but also hosts large touring shows such as Broadway’s Wicked and Hamilton, the Philharmonic Orchestra of London and well-known artists like Alice Cooper and James Taylor. More than just a rental facility, we host seasons of performances by the USC School of Music, USC Department of Theatre and Dance and Koger Center Presents series. A constantly changing roster of performances by Broadway tours, local, national and internationally known artists make the Koger Center an arts destination for audiences from all over the state of South Carolina.
As part of our mission to enrich the lives of all South Carolinians, particularly the youngest members of the community, the Koger Center hosts educational performances by the South Carolina Philharmonic, ColaJazz, South Carolina Ballet, Columbia Classical Ballet, Love Peace and Hip-Hop and touring companies. To offer a broader view of performing and visual arts the Koger Center offers in-person backstage tours to school groups, an online virtual backstage tour and a suite of educational videos exploring careers “behind the scenes” in performing and visual arts.
In recent years the Koger Center rethought how the building is used to provide opportunities for more community members to be involved in the facility. Even though the rental fee has not gone up in nearly twenty years, the size of the main auditorium can make the facility impractical to smaller local arts organizations. With the creation of the Live in the Lobby series in 2019 we have shifted use of the Grand Tier lobby into a 150-seat music venue allowing burgeoning regional and local artists to perform at the Koger Center. In 2022 a permanent stage was incorporated into the plaza in front of the facility allowing for open air performances with seating on the lawn. The summer of 2024 saw phase one of the rehearsal hall’s transformation into a 150-250 seat Black Box Theater with the installation of retractable audience seating. These improvements have allowed for a wider range of performing arts genres and more local artists to use the facility allowing the Koger Center to reach deeper into the local community by providing a wider range of free and low-cost performances.
Watch the South Carolina Arts Awards Sunday, May 18, 2025 at 7 p.m. EDT.
The SCAC is excited to present a streaming presentation of the awards in 2025!
Viewers can access it via the SCAC YouTube Channel, and it will also be streamed through the SCAC Facebook page. Internet-connected smart TV’s or streaming devices with the YouTube app may be used for a more broadcast-style experience.