Theatre 99

Founding (1993)

Tommy Brunett, Timmy Sherrill, and Brandy Sullivan founded Theatre 99 in Charleston, South Carolina in 1993. The company took its name from the address of its original location at 99 Spring Street. Theatre 99 established itself as the primary improv venue in the Southeast outside Atlanta, offering regular shows and developing a trained local performer base.

Programming and Growth

Theatre 99 built a consistent performance schedule and training program over the following decades, anchoring Charleston's comedy community. The company has operated continuously since its founding, surviving economic shifts and the 2020–2021 pandemic closure period.

Ongoing Operations

Theatre 99 continues to operate in Charleston, offering regular performances of both short-form and long-form improv alongside class programming. It remains the Southeast's longest-running dedicated improv theatre outside Atlanta.

Theatre 99 presents both short-form audience-interactive improv and long-form ensemble work. Its training program has produced the majority of working improv performers in the Charleston region, and the company functions as both a community gathering place and a professional development institution for South Carolina improvisers.

The Have Nots!, performed once a month since 1995 by co-founders Brandy Sullivan and Greg Tavares, is the longest-running production in Charleston and the defining show of the Theatre 99 repertoire. The Piccolo Fringe festival, which Theatre 99 founded within the framework of the annual Piccolo Spoleto arts celebration, runs each spring and presents a multi-day program of comedy, sketch, and improv from the company's ensemble and invited guests. One long-running Piccolo Fringe entry is The Complete History of Charleston for Morons, a locally flavored comic survey of the city's history presented in the tradition of broad satirical history shows. The Charleston Comedy Festival, co-founded by The Have Nots! in 2004 and now partnered with the Charleston City Paper, is a four-day citywide event each January drawing stand-up, sketch, and improv performers from across the country to Theatre 99 and associated venues.

Theatre 99's origin lies in a 1995 Piccolo Spoleto run in which Brandy Sullivan, Greg Tavares, and Timmy Finch performed sixteen shows under the name The Have Nots! -- a name adopted because Tavares had been unable to secure programming slots within the official Piccolo Spoleto lineup, placing the trio among the festival's 'have nots.' After years of performing in bars, churches, schools, hotel ballrooms, and movie theaters across the Charleston area -- accumulating more than 1,500 shows and touring over 225 colleges in 26 states -- the group rented a 99-seat space on Cumberland Street in 2000 and named it Theatre 99. In 2001, they formalized the Piccolo Fringe program, and in 2005 the theater relocated to its current 130-seat home at 280 Meeting Street above the Bicycle Shoppe, retaining the original name despite the expanded capacity. Sullivan and Tavares serve as co-founders and co-artistic directors; Tavares has also published the book Improv for Everyone, extending the theater's educational mission beyond its Charleston base. With over 45 active performers, nightly shows on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, and a training program that has shaped hundreds of local performers over three decades, Theatre 99 stands as one of the oldest continuously operating improv venues in the American Southeast.