At Parkway Playhouse, our passion is to tell stories that reflect how we live in our community.  Our mission is to engage in an exchange of ideas that inspires new connections, new thinking, more feeling, and laughter. The vision of Parkway Playhouse is to strengthen our community by using theatre and the performing arts to uplift, unite, and inspire new ways of looking at the world.

Professor William Raymond Taylor, in 1947, succeeded in founding Parkway Playhouse, originally known as Burnsville Playhouse, Inc. and School of Dramatic Arts, the first of its kind in the South. On May 7, 1979 The Burnsville Playhouse, Inc. officially and legally became Parkway Playhouse. The name and “scarecrow” logo is attributed to Claude “Slats” Rayborn who had spent many summers at the Playhouse as a student of UNC-Chapel Hill.