After Nearly 50 Years, Charlotte’s Carolina Theatre Reopens on March 24

Grammy Award winners Mark and Maggie O’Connor to headline weekend of festivities

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – You actually can call it a comeback.

 

Closed since 1978, the historic Carolina Theatre in Uptown Charlotte will reopen its doors on Monday, March 24 at 3 p.m. with a public ribbon-cutting ceremony followed by a free Open House until 7 p.m.

 

“As a community-first nonprofit theatre, it’s important everyone – no matter who you are or where you come from – feels welcome at the Carolina Theatre from day one,” Sean Seifert, the Carolina Theatre’s executive director, said. “We’re deeply rooted in Charlotte’s history like few other places, and now we’re investing in our community’s future.”

 

Together, with Foundation For The Carolinas’ headquarters and event venues, the Carolina Theatre will anchor the Belk Place civic campus, named in honor of the families of Katherine Belk and the late Thomas M. Belk and the late Claudia and John M. Belk.

 

Following the public Open House, the Carolina Theatre will welcome back the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra (CSO) to its stage for a special performance on Friday, March 28 at 7:30 p.m. This event holds special significance, as the CSO gave its inaugural performance at the Carolina Theatre 93 years ago on March 20, 1932. The event, which the CSO has named “A Homecoming,” features world-renowned soprano Renée Fleming in a performance inspired by her Grammy Award-winning album, Voice of Nature: The Anthropocene.

 

“It’s no coincidence the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra will be among the first to take the stage at our newly restored Carolina Theatre,” Seifert said. “We’re jazzed to welcome the CSO back to the place where it all began nearly a century ago.”

 

Then, on Saturday, March 29 at 8 p.m., the Carolina Theatre will host its first ticketed event in nearly five decades: local and Grammy Award-winning musicians Mark and Maggie O’Connor. The husband-and-wife duo will bring their genre-blending Beethoven & Bluegrass performance to the Carolina Theatre a full month before they perform it at New York City’s Carnegie Hall. The Country Music Association named Mark O’Connor its Musician of the Year

 

 

six years in a row. Most recently, he, Maggie and their O’Connor Band won the Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album in 2016.

 

First opened on Tryon Street in 1927, the Carolina Theatre flourished for decades before closing in 1978. Deemed too architecturally significant and too sentimental to demolish, the Carolina Theatre has sat vacant at its original location on Tryon Street since then.

 

The city of Charlotte gifted the Carolina Theatre’s property to Foundation For The Carolinas in 2012 for $1, which began a massive $90 million philanthropic campaign to restore the theatre to its beloved glory. The deeply complex eight-year restoration process began in 2017. 

 

While the Carolina Theatre at Belk Place will reclaim its space in Uptown Charlotte as a live entertainment venue, an important use of the Carolina Theatre will also be hosting town halls, community events, speaker series and civic engagement.

 

“This is Charlotte’s theatre. Plain and simple,” Seifert said. “We’re the community’s living room.”

 

Audiences can purchase tickets for any of these or future events at the Carolina Theatre at TheCarolina.com.

 

High-resolution photography is available in the Carolina Theatre’s photo gallery

or by contacting Jared Misner at Jared@TheCarolina.com.