Mary Fran Crook, Executive Director of Joye in Aiken
Joye in Aiken is a nonprofit organization dedicated to making the very best in the performing arts available to our citizens, and especially our students. In 2016, Joye was awarded the Elizabeth O’Neill Verner Award (South Carolina’s highest honor in the arts) for its Educational Outreach Program.
Founded in 2008, Joye in Aiken is the heir to, and the very embodiment of, Aiken’s longstanding tradition of nurturing excellence in the arts. The organization takes its name from Joye Cottage, a fabulous Gilded Age mansion once the center of a social circle that included America’s most prominent families. The 60-room “cottage” hosted performances by some of the world’s greatest artists, attended by some of the nation’s wealthiest arts patrons.
Today, Joye in Aiken carries that legacy forward, but with a difference. Where in earlier times only the privileged few in our area were able to enjoy those truly world-class experiences, now the organization brings that same magic to a much wider and more diverse audience. In the last 17 years, we have brought over 700 musicians, actors, and dancers at the top of their disciplines (primarily from The Juilliard School) to participate in the weeklong Performing Arts Festival held each March, where a wide variety of events are made available to the public at low or no cost. Even more importantly, through our Outreach Program, those artists have taught, mentored, and inspired over 50,000 area schoolchildren.
The name “Joye in Aiken” is meant to honor the central role that Joye Cottage has played in our history while suggesting the very nature of the program itself, which has brought boundless joy to so many of our citizens. Through our Festival and Outreach Program, we share experiences with families and students, young and old, from all backgrounds and walks of life, representing the highest and most joyful reaches of artistic endeavor.
The legacy continues.
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