The Elizabeth O'Neill Verner Awards

Founder and producing artistic director of Charleston Stage, Julian Wiles, is a director, playwright, set and lighting designer, educator, and arts manager. Under his direction Charleston Stage, in residence at the Historic Dock Street Theatre, has grown into South Carolina’s largest resident professional theatre employing over 100 actors, singers, dancers and technical artists each season. Charleston Stage’s extensive arts education programs have enriched the lives of over a half million South Carolina young people since the company’s founding in 1978. 

As artistic director, Wiles has directed and designed more than 200 productions. As a playwright, he has written 27 original plays and musicals which have been published and performed nationally and internationally. Having grown up on a cotton farm in Fort Motte, S.C., his South Carolina roots are evident in such works as "The Seat of Justice," about South Carolina’s pivotal role in Brown V. Board of Education, and "Gershwin at Folly," which chronicles DuBose Heyward and George Gershwin’s creation of Porgy and Bess.

Wiles lobbied for and served on the design team for the Historic Dock Street Theatre’s recently completed renovation by the City of Charleston. Wiles will open Charleston Stage’s thirty-third season there in September 2010.