Lights may dim at the Varsity Theatre

CHAPEL HILL, NC — With a possible sale around the corner, the future of the Varsity Theatre is in doubt.

Reports are swirling through Chapel Hill and the surrounding community that the iconic Varsity Theater located in Downtown Chapel Hill at 123 East Franklin Street is scheduled to close its doors forever on Thursday,June 4, 2009, leaving Downtown Chapel Hill without a movie house in years. The owner of the Varsity Bruce Stone said Tuesday that “we’re in the process of negotiating a sale” but offered few details about that announcement or whether a failure to sell the theater, which has been a movie going favorite and a historic Chapel Hill landmark for years,would result in its closure.

The Varsity Theatre opened as a single screen theatre during its heyday,but in the early 1980’s the theatre underwent some changes. Construction of the auditorium began in late-1982 when the original auditorium was split in two making a twin cinema. It reopened in 1983 as the Varsity 1 & 2 under new management. The main focus of the Varsity was its showing of a variety of films ranging for independent features,foreign films,documentaries, re-issued classic films, cult movies,not to mention first-run films and second-run features.

Read the full story in the Herald Sun.(reg rqr’d)