Through the Clayton County Board of Education, the citizens of Clayton County own and operate one of the most unique performing arts venues in the United States. Thousands of Clayton County students and their parents dreamed of having adequate facilities for their concerts and shows. It took the visionary Superintendent of Clayton County Schools, Mr. Ernest Stroud, to galvanize the citizens into action. Mr. Stroud’s dream to provide a state-of-the-art facility for the performing arts students of Clayton County, became a reality when he led the citizens to vote at an astounding 90% rate of approval to fund the building of this and several other school system facilities. Mr. Stroud’s dreams and those of his constituents came to complete fruition on May 20, 1990, when hundreds of Clayton County students performed at the Grand Opening and Dedication of the Performing Arts Center.

Built and equipped at a cost of $7,500,000, the facility has proven to be a bargain in every sense. Recent estimates by Robert and Company, the architectural firm that designed the facility, place the cost of duplicating the Performing Arts Center at $18 million to $20 million. The Ernest L. Stroud Hall is the focal point of the facility. With a seating capacity of 1800 this auditorium is the third largest in metropolitan Atlanta. At the rear of this huge room, there are two turntables housing 250 and 350 seats respectively. When the turntables are rotated, the seats become seating for the Lloyd Tarpley Theatre and the Recital Hall. Thus three events can, and often do take place simultaneously.

During these first ten years of operation, the Performing Arts Center has welcomed over two million persons as performers or audience members. In addition to throngs of Clayton County and Atlanta area users, touring performers from Africa, Canada, China, England, India, Japan, Korea, the former Soviet Union and Southeast Asia have graced the Performing Arts Center stages. Between four hundred and five hundred events occur in the Performing Arts Center each year. The facility is open and utilized on an average of three hundred, twenty-five days each year. Indeed the Clayton County Schools Performing Arts Center is the center of artistic activity for Clayton County.