The first Carolina Theatre, designed in the Beaux-Arts style, opened in Durham in 1926. It closed in 1978 but was reopened a decade later after an $8.3 million dollar renovation. Currently, the city-owned theater’s programming includes performances by the local symphony and opera, as well as dance, theater and musical acts.

Charlotte’s own Carolina Theatre, featuring a multi-faceted Mediterranean design combining elements of Spanish, art nouveau and Elizabethan architecture, opened in the spring of 1927, followed by the construction of a Carolina Theatre built in the style of a Greek temple in Greensboro later that year.

Completing the North Carolina foursome was an Art Deco-style theater constructed in Winston-Salem, which opened in 1929. Like their sister theaters in Charlotte and Durham, the Greensboro and Winston-Salem venues suffered periods of decline in the 1960s-1970s, but they have since undergone renovations and reopened as performing arts centers hosting a variety of music, dance and theater productions as well as films.

The renovation of the Carolina Theatre here in Charlotte is a welcome addition that completes the work, bringing the final North Carolina “Carolina Theatre” treasure back to life.

Sources:
http://carolinatheatre.org/about.  Accessed August 25, 2016, 10:00 AM.
http://carolinatheatre.com/about/history.  Accessed August 25, 2016, 10:30 AM.
http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/728.  Accessed August 25, 2016, 11:00 AM.