Charleston’s Spoleto Festival announces 2011 line-up

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• The Australian troupe Circa will be one of the many acts performing at the 2011 Spoleto Festival.

The Spoleto Festival has just announced its 2011 line-up, and if you’ve never been before, this is definitely the summer to finally get off your duff and get to Charleston. At a time when many arts organizations have been forced to tighten their belts or even shutter shop, Spoleto has chosen a different path: expand and diversify.

Spoleto, in case you don’t know, is the annual two-week performing arts festival kicking off Memorial Day weekend in Charleston, South Carolina, and now in its 35th year. For 17 days at the end of May and beginning of June, Charleston venues large and small are filled from morning to night with world-class theater, music, opera, dance and performance art. For sheer scope, magnitude and prestige, it is the top festival in the Southeast: There’s not really even a close second. In past years, Spoleto has commissioned and premiered work by Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Allen Ginsburg and Phillip Glass. It played a key role at the start of the careers of classical luminaries like Renée Flemming, Emanuel Ax, Joshua Bell, Yo-Yo Ma, the Emerson String Quartet and Jean-Yves Thibaudet, all of whom festival-goers saw when they were relative unknowns.

Charleston is just a six hour drive from Atlanta, so there really is no excuse for audiences here not to go check it out for a couple days. Although hotels in Charleston’s toney downtown walking district can be pricey, hotels outside the city can be found in the $50-80 range and even less. And one of the nice things about Charleston (there are many) is that it’s close to the beach, so savvy Atlanta Culture Surfers can plan a Memorial Day weekend vacation extravaganza: beach by day, world-class performances by night, all for just a few hundred dollars. (Recession!? What recession?)

The Spoleto line-up for 2011 is one of the largest and most ambitious yet. You can look over the complete schedule and buy tickets now at SpoletoUSA or check out the picks that have peaked our curiosity after the jump.