How Dolly Parton’s dinner theater shaped Myrtle Beach into entertainment destination

(WPDE) — Forty years ago, live theater was still an experiment in Myrtle Beach. Today, it is a defining part of the Grand Strand experience.

Image: CNN.com

Image: CNN.com

The Carolina Opry is celebrating its 40th anniversary, while just next door, Dolly Parton’s theater — now home to Pirates Voyage — is marking more than three decades of live entertainment in Myrtle Beach. Pirates Voyage itself celebrated 15 years in Myrtle Beach in June.

The neighboring theaters never shared a stage, but their presence side by side helped establish Myrtle Beach as a destination for live entertainment.

From a dream to a sold-out show

Calvin Gilmore opened the first Carolina Opry in Surfside Beach in 1986, at a time when Myrtle Beach was better known for its beaches and golf than for professionally produced live theater.

Gilmore’s connection to the Grand Strand began years earlier.

While participating in a college program selling books door to door in North Carolina, Gilmore and his friends traveled to Myrtle Beach at the end of the summer. They could not find a hotel room, so they slept in sleeping bags on a golf course near the site where the Carolina Opry would eventually be built.

Years later, when Gilmore began looking for a place to establish his own theater, he remembered Myrtle Beach.

The vision was simple: Create nightly entertainment for families visiting the Grand Strand.

After taking over a former nightclub in Surfside Beach, Gilmore and his family and crew got to work.

The response was immediate. By the end of the first year, the show was selling out. The following year, Gilmore said, the theater sold out every night.

The success helped prove there was an audience for live entertainment in Myrtle Beach.

A theater boom

The Carolina Opry’s success helped fuel a broader expansion of live entertainment across the Grand Strand.

Country music stars followed. New venues opened. And live shows became an increasingly important part of the Myrtle Beach vacation experience.

Gilmore said the growth eventually caught the attention of developers and entertainment figures in Nashville, Los Angeles and New York.

That included Dolly Parton. In 1992, Gilmore and Parton became neighbors, with their theaters located side by side.

Parton’s Dixie Stampede eventually became Pirates Voyage, a large-scale dinner theater featuring pirate crews, live animals, acrobatics and battles on land, on deck and in the water. The Myrtle Beach production remains a major family entertainment attraction.

A lasting influence

Gilmore said Parton’s influence extended well beyond the theater next door.

He first met Parton while searching for a location for the theaters and said he was fortunate to benefit from her presence in Myrtle Beach.

Today, the Grand Strand’s entertainment landscape includes country and tribute shows, magic, comedy, dinner theaters and other live productions.

The variety has become part of what visitors expect when they come to Myrtle Beach. For Gilmore, though, the most significant part of the story may be longevity.

He once described Myrtle Beach’s hierarchy this way: The ocean is king, golf is queen, and the Carolina Opry would be happy to be the “prince of tides.”

Forty years after opening night, the lights are still on.

What began with a young performer from a farm in the Ozarks of Missouri dreaming of building his own theater — alongside a Tennessee entertainer with a vision of her own and a little extra sparkle — has become something much bigger.