Why go
DuBose Heyward’s Porgy, Pat Conroy’s The Lords of Discipline, and Sue Monk Kidd’s The Invention of Wings connect fiction to very different Charleston histories. The American Theatre on King Street and the College of Charleston’s Randolph Hall also show how filmmakers use recognizable city spaces.
The full story
Writers and filmmakers have repeatedly used Charleston’s streets, harbor, and institutions, but they have told very different stories with them. DuBose Heyward’s Porgy helped turn the city into a stage for a story shaped by Black life, while Pat Conroy’s The Lords of Discipline drew on his experience at the Citadel. Sue Monk Kidd’s The Invention of Wings places part of its story in Charleston and connects it to Sarah Grimké, who was born here. On screen, The Notebook used the American Theatre on King Street for a date scene, and The Patriot used Randolph Hall at the College of Charleston as a period meeting house. These are useful examples precisely because setting and filming location are not always the same thing. One building may be asked to represent another era or another place. For a walk, select a work you know and look for its specific street or building, then keep the city’s actual history separate from the fiction staged there.
Useful to know
- Choose one book or film connection to pair with a nearby downtown stop; the works span different neighborhoods and eras.
- Treat a filming site as a location used for a story, not proof that the scene’s events happened there.