After over a decade in its Uptown location, The Actor’s Theatre of Charlotte is in search of a new home.
The theater’s been on East Stonewall Street since 2004. Now the plan for the site is to demolish the theater and build—what else—apartments. Proffitt Dixon Partners plans to build a 6 to 10-story apartment building with additional retail space.
With all the development in the center city, the theatre’s Executive Director Dan Shoemaker says this news wasn’t too much of a surprise.
"We’ve been actually looking for a larger space and we’ve been talking to a number of people about larger space, because we knew this was inevitable," Shoemaker says.
Shoemaker hopes the theater stays in the Uptown area. Southend is also a possibility. The property’s owner, Mike Mulvaney, is an Actor's Theatre of Charlotte supporter and wants to help it find a new home.
With more development, Mulvaney says he’s had more offers to sell. Combine that with his age (he’s in his 70’s) he says it was time.
"So we were going to be eaten up one way or another by development that was occurring in the area. Change is constant and this is one of them. We’re going to have to find a replacement of something that’s equal or better than what we have now and we can do that," says Mulvaney.
The theater enters its 27th season this week starting off with a sold out opening of the musical Rock of Ages. The irony of which is not lost on them—after all, the musical’s plot is based around a funky cultural hot spot about to be bulldozed.
The lease is up in July 2016.