Durham’s Carolina Theatre lays off staff, will close from January through June

The Carolina Theatre of Durham has laid off about 90% its staff and will close from January through June to save money during the pandemic, interim CEO and President Bethann James said Wednesday.

“It’s just a sad time, you know, but we have made every effort to continue to earn revenue,” James said. “The Carolina Theatre finds itself in a precarious situation because we are both a cinema, and we’re also an events venue.”

“So we fall into two different categories in regards to the governor’s protocols on public places,” she said.

The theater is not closing permanently, she said.

James said she could not share how many employees have been laid off but that more information will be available Monday.

Gov. Roy Cooper issued a warning this week about rising coronavirus cases. He set new rules for mask wearing ahead of Thanksgiving, urging people to cover their faces when indoors with non-household members, The News & Observer reported.

On Nov. 10, he lowered the indoor gathering limit from 25 to 10 people, The N&O reported..

“Because we’ve gone back to 10 people inside, there’s really very little that we can do as an event space with 10 people,” James said.

‘We were not making enough money’

The Carolina Theatre closed to the public in March, after Mayor Steve Schewel declared a state of emergency due to the rise of COVID-19.

The theater had offered limited indoor and outdoor screenings in October when Phase 3 began, but to little success, James said.

“We were not making enough money to continue to make those offerings,” she said.

The city of Durham gave the theater $690,000 to manage operations in 2018, according to its fiscal 2019 tax form.

The theater reported nearly $3.56 million in revenue that year and $3.16 million in expenses, including $1.84 million in employee salaries and other compensation.

Schewel did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday afternoon.

James said the temporary closure was a difficult, but necessary decision for the theater’s board of trustees to make.

“People’s lives and livelihoods are affected here. It’s a holiday time where, you know, we have this global pandemic going on,” James said.

“We don’t want to go under. We want to be able to come back and offer dynamic programming,” she added.

Theater history

The Carolina Theatre opened in downtown Durham in 1926.

In 2018, the nonprofit running the theater named the venue’s cinema wing after its former interim CEO and president, Dan Berman, and his wife, Karen Berman, had helped the nonprofit erase a $1.7 million net-deficit during 2016 and 2017, according to a 2018 news release.

A financial crisis had nearly caused the theater to close, in 2016, and city officials stepped up to save it, The N&O has reported.

In July of this year, James became the theater’s interim CEO and president, following Rebecca Newton’s retirement, a news release states.

Most recently, the theater held its annual LGBTQ film event, OutSouth Queer Film Festival, in a virtual capacity from Nov. 13 through Nov. 19.

This story was originally published November 25, 2020 at 2:17 PM.