Leadership

Julian Wiles
Founder and Producing Artistic Director

Director, designer, and playwright Julian Wiles founded Charleston Stage, Charleston's resident professional theatre company, in 1978. It has since grown into South Carolina's largest professional theatre and one of the state's largest arts institutions. Over the past 42 years, Wiles has directed and designed more than 250 productions and penned 31 original plays and musicals for the company. Wiles continues to serve as the company's Producing Artistic Director, heading a staff of 28 full-time theatre professionals.

Wiles, a South Carolina native, grew up on a cotton farm in Ft. Motte, South Carolina. He attended Clemson University and received a history degree from the College of Charleston in 1974 and an M.F.A. in Dramatic Art from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1976.

Wiles has written or adapted 31original plays and musicals for the company including the boy who stole the stars, Nevermore! Edgar Allan Poe, the Final Mystery, The Seat of Justice, Denmark Vesey: Insurrection, Gershwin at Folly, Helium, and Inga Binga. Seven of his plays are published by Dramatic Publishing and have been produced around the country.

Julian Wiles is a recipient of the 2010 Elizabeth O'Neill Verner Award, the highest honor in the arts awarded by the South Carolina Arts Commission. Wiles is also a member of the Dramatists Guild. Wiles was also inducted into the SC Theatre Association's Hall of Fame in 2018.

Marybeth Clark
Associate Artistic Director and Director of Education

Marybeth Clark is in her twenty-first season with Charleston Stage. She was born in Pittsburgh, PA, and grew up in Tolland, CT. Marybeth has a degree in theatre/performance from the University of South Florida and was cast in her first show at an Equity theatre at 18 years of age in Tampa. She worked as an actor in professional theatres throughout the Southeast for ten years before settling in Charleston in 1994 with her husband, actor Victor Clark. She was a member of the theatre faculty at Charleston County’s School of the Arts for middle and high school students. Though she moved to Charleston planning on ‘retiring’ from theatre and starting a family, she taught and directed for Charleston Stage part time beginning in 1997, before joining the company full-time the following year.

She and Vic are the proud parents of 2 daughters, Lila and Prentice. Lila is a college sophomore at Drew University in Madison, NJ, and Prentice graduated from Catawba College in 2018 and works with special needs students at the Washington Center in Greenville, SC. They do not have an empty nest but share their home with Marybeth's mother and many adopted dogs and cats.