Celebrating ‘a piece of Charlotte history’ at the $90M reopening of Carolina Theatre
In 1989, Joy Sanderson wrote a guest column in The Charlotte Observer asking for someone to renovate and reopen the Carolina Theatre.
At the time, Sanderson was a rising junior at Charlotte Christian School. The theater closed in 1978, so she never experienced a show there, but looking at the vacant venue while eating dinner with her parents at The Dunhill Hotel sparked her curiosity.
“The more my parents told me about it, the more interested I became,” she wrote. “By the end of the night, I was ready and willing to do anything to get in there.”
So when Sanderson was finally allowed inside the treasured and fully restored Carolina Theatre, she let out a joyful “Yes!”
It was a sentiment shared with the more than 100 people who showed up for the historic venue’s reopening and ribbon cutting ceremony on Monday.
“I’ve never been a real big history buff but this just drew my attention and tugged at my heart strings,” Sanderson said. “It’s a piece of Charlotte that’s being re-recognized. A piece of Charlotte history. … Nobody wanted it to be torn down, so it’s nice to see that we’re actually keeping something and it’s not being bulldozed.”
A 47-year debut
When the Carolina Theatre opened in 1927 it was the premier venue for Broadway productions, movies and musical acts, including a 21-year-old Elvis Presley.
But when people started venturing to the suburbs to watch movies, the theater closed on Nov. 27, 1978. The final film was Bruce Lee’s “The Fist.”
From there, it sat empty and decrepit but never abandoned or unwanted. People like Sanderson, who needed the historic venue to be a future entity, joined others in the fight for preservation. That included Charlie Clayton, who started the Carolina Theatre Preservation Society.
And reviving the venue was a fight, Clayton said.
“The city didn’t want to keep it. They wanted to sell it,” Clayton said. “But you have to fight and it’s tough. Being tenacious actually worked and it doesn’t work in some cases but it worked.”
The city never demolished the building. In 2013, the city gifted the building to Foundation For The Carolinas, which began a $90 million renovation of the site in 2018.
Looking around the airy entryway with its glass walls, a sparkling light fixture mimicking branches sprawled across the ceiling and a marquee awning lined with globe light bulbs beckoned viewers into the massive auditorium.
No words can really decribe how it feels to see the fight pay off, Clayton said.
“There’s so many stories here,” Clayton said. “I don’t think there was any other group in Charlotte that was as tenacious as we were.”
Sandra Gray agreed saying, “Charlie held on with all of his teeth. Nobody could shake him off.”
A new third place in uptown
The theater now boasts 905 seats, 10 laser projectors, including one for 4K movies, and a multimillion-dollar sound system.
Monday’s ribbon cutting was just the beginning of the celebrations the venue has planned.
The theater’s first event will be with the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra, an ode to their long history together. The orchestra held its inaugural performance there on March 20, 1932.
Now, 93 years later, the orchestra will return to its birthplace, alongside famed soprano Renée Fleming, on March 28.
The following day, Grammy Award-winning musicians Mark and Maggie O’Connor will take the stage in the theater’s first ticketed event since it closed in 1978.
Lorine Edwards said she’s walked past the vacant theater for the past 19 years wondering if it’ll ever reopen. Now that it has, Edwards said it’s another place people in uptown can explore.
“When we first moved here, uptown had hardly anything. People came here to work and then they went home,” Edwards said. “The city has been growing since, and I mean the liveliness of uptown on the weekends is amazing. We walk out and there’s so much going on that wasn’t here before. The theater just adds one more thing to do.”
Jasminn McDonald agreed. She dressed up for the occasion, clad in a tiara, triple pearl choker, white elbow-length gloves and a red Regency-era gown.
“I’ve always dreamed of being up on the stage in front of a crowd of people but because I have autism, my fans are basically at home,” McDonald said. “But I love the theater… I want to see all the shows.”
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This story was originally published March 24, 2025 at 6:54 PM.
