There was a bright spot over the weekend for Charlotte's local theater community after a tough few years.
A group of actors and stagehands staged a show at Theatre Charlotte's historic auditorium on Queens Road for the first time since a fire ripped through the building two years ago.
Inside the theater's lobby on opening night, audience members grabbed boxes of popcorn as volunteer ushers checked their tickets. The smell of paint and freshly-laid carpet lingered inside the auditorium.
Theatre Charlotte's board president, Diana Wakefield, was among the first to arrive for Friday's opening performance of "A Christmas Carol."
"My heart is full. I can't stop smiling. My cheeks are aching. I think I'm going to cry!" she said.
Others admired the theater's new seats and pointed to the original wooden roof beams, now visible above the audience.
"The seats were just completed late last week," said Chris Timmons, the theater's executive director.
The curtains are also new. So is the flooring, windows and paint. The sound and lighting equipment had also been replaced, and none of it was cheap.
"We're probably looking at a renovation well over a million dollars total," Timmons said.
All of this was due to an early-morning fire in December 2020 that nearly destroyed the 216-seat auditorium, built in 1941. The fire started in the HVAC system and was deemed accidental.
At the time, the theater called it "the final punch in the face from 2020," a year in which COVID-19 halted indoor performances, and audiences didn't engage as much with outdoor and streaming productions.
Some local theaters, like Actor's Theatre of Charlotte, closed permanently. But Theatre Charlotte pledged to rebuild, and the mood backstage on opening night was celebratory.
The actors cheered and hugged outside their dressing rooms before the curtain rose.
Logan Campbell, who plays Tiny Tim, said he enjoyed seeing the theater come back to life.
"It was actually really satisfying to watch, and it was really entertaining to see how it came together," Campbell said.
Actor Becky Kirby was part of the theater's outdoor production of "A Christmas Carol" in 2020. She also performed onstage for a filmed version right before the fire. She said she was emotional returning to the theater after two years.
"I went out and sat in the house, and the curtain was down, and they had the stage lights on, and there was — I think 'What Child is This' was playing in the back, and I did — I got a little choked up," she said.
For some actors like Rachel Griffin, the building is more than just a space for local theater, it's an origin story.
"My parents actually met here. They met during a production of "The Snow Queen" in either '98 or '99, so I exist because of this place," Griffin said.
As the theater reopened, Timmons told the cast and crew not to take their time onstage for granted.'
"It's special to have this connection with an audience. To have a live audience and be in the same room with them. What we're telling them is to cherish that time on stage, because as we've found, it may not be there tomorrow," Timmons said.
He said there's still a long road ahead. Staff will need to fundraise and hope for strong ticket sales to cover the high costs of repairs — which were about double what the theater anticipated, partly due to rising construction costs — but the theater is off to a good start.
As of Sunday, all performances of the show were sold out.
