History of PAC

The Paramount Acting Company (PAC) is the City of Burlington/Department of Recreation and Parks community theater. Drawing on the theatrical talent of Burlington and all of central North Carolina, PAC presents a minimum of two summer productions each year at Burlington’s historic Paramount Theater.

PAC’s mission is to provide increased theatrical experiences for actors, technicians, and artisans in the Burlington/Triad/Triangle areas, while enhancing the cultural and entertainment life of the area’s residents.

Since its founding in 1998, PAC has presented almost fifty productions, ranging from light comedies to original musicals. It has been the producing company for ten, world-premiere productions:

--Cole’s Dairy Lunch—a musical chronicling the events and characters surrounding a real-life Burlington diner from the Depression through the early 1960s.

--Rejoice Dear Hearts: An Evening with Brother Dave Gardner—a play combining the comedy and true-life story of one of the most popular comedians of the 50s and 60s. It toured nationally for six years, under the auspices of The JENA Company of New York.

--Only Kidding—a contemporary comedy by Greensboro playwright Scott Icenhower, subsequently produced by community theatres around the country.

--The Fabulous Paramounts: The Oldies and Beach Music Musical—a musical tracing the five year career of a fictional Carolina Beach Music band.

--Ruthie—a contemporary adaptation of the Old Testament Book of Ruth, named winner of the Southern Appalachian Repertory Theatre’s 2007 “Scriptworks” competition.

--The Last Encampment—a dramatized account of real events occurring in Piedmont North Carolina at the end of the American Civil War.

--The Hermit of Ft. Fisher—the story of Robert Harrill, the famous Fort Fisher hermit, named a “Top Three Finalist” in the 2012 Southern Playwrights Competition.

--Wyatt Outlaw—a dramatized account of the life and murder of Wyatt Outlaw, a former slave, a former US Army veteran, a local government official, and a hero of Reconstruction-era America.

--The Ballad of Coley Cain—a “play with music”, telling the story of a true-life crime wave in Alamance County in the summer of 1936. A joint production with the Alamance Repertory Theatre Company.

PAC was also the producing theatre for the world-premiere production of Last Roundup of the Guacamole Queens, a raucous Southern comedy by the playwriting team of Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope, and Jamie Wooten. It has gone on to be produced nationwide.
Producing great theatre since 1998!