Keith Holliday to lead Carolina Theatre

Following his retirement from city politics, former Mayor Keith Holliday will announce today that he has accepted the position as president and CEO of the Carolina Theatre, opening a new chapter in his longstanding passion for downtown Greensboro.

Holliday announced last year that he would not run for reelection and last December completed four terms as mayor. His second act as a cultural administrator after serving in elected office echoes predecessor Jim Melvin’s reprise as a civic leader, in his appointment to head the Joseph M. Bryan Foundation after serving five terms as mayor. Holliday will retire as vice president at First Carolina Bank to work at the Carolina Theatre.

“Quite frankly, I was recruited,” Holliday told YES! Weekly. “It was one of those things where the more I heard, the more I wanted to do it. I love downtown Greensboro. It’s an opportunity to take my banking skills, my mayoral skills and my business skills and help lead the Carolina Theatre. It’s too beautiful a building for so many people to have not been in it.”

The former mayor will make the announcement today at 11:30 a.m. at the theater, which is located at 310 S. Greene St.

The Carolina Theatre opened in 1927 as a 2,200-seat vaudeville house. According to its official history, the theater’s crystal chandeliers, gilded railings, marbled columns and classical statues made the theater a regional showpiece at the time it opened. Originally operated as part of the Keith Vaudeville chain, the venue featured live shows, supplemented by newsreels, silent films and, later, movies with sound. The theater underwent a long, gradual decline in the late 1960s as suburbanization eviscerated downtown commerce, and it caught fire in 1981. In March 2006, ownership transferred from the United Arts Council to a new nonprofit, Carolina Theatre Inc., following a strategic planning study by the council.

“We’re going to do a major capital campaign,” Holliday said. “When people talk about downtown Greensboro, they talk about the new things. They always point to the baseball stadium and the downtown park. You’re going to at least add Carolina Theatre to that layer…. I will be the public face. I’ll be focusing on promoting and marketing the theater, on fundraising, and engaging the corporate community.”

Holliday added that he expects the theater to expand its programming, although day-to-day operations and programming will remain the purview of Executive Director Brian Gray.

Holliday officially begins his new job at the Carolina Theatre on April 15, following 20 years of employment at First Citizens Bank. He said he will receive a modest increase in pay. Although he refused to rule out a future run for elected office, he said he has no immediate plans to return to politics. From 1999 to 2007, he juggled leading the city as mayor with his job at the bank — a balancing act he doesn’t wish to revive

“I will never do two [jobs] ever again; I’m not going to do both,” he said. “This is what I’ve chosen to do, very much to serve Greensboro in a way that would be beneficial, that would bring more positive growth that will be wonderful for Greensboro. As long as the Carolina will have me, I’ll be there.”