Spoleto Festival USA & Piccolo Spoleto Guide

For seventeen days spanning late May into June, Charleston becomes one of the great arts cities on Earth. Spoleto Festival USA, founded in 1977 as the American counterpart to Italy’s Festival dei Due Mondi, packs the historic peninsula’s theaters, churches, and courtyards with world-class opera, theater, dance, chamber and symphonic music, and jazz — a genuinely international program in a city built for it. Running right alongside it, its scrappier local companion Piccolo Spoleto throws hundreds of mostly free events showcasing Southeastern artists, from Custom House concerts to the finale in the park. Between the two, the whole city hums with performance for two and a half weeks.