Warehouse Performing Arts Returns to Cornelius Roots

By Jon Show – Seventy seats. Five rows. A stage so close the actors can hear you breathe. Warehouse Performing Arts Center is back in Cornelius, and it’s betting that small and intimate is exactly what Lake Norman has been missing.

After a stretch spent producing shows in Charlotte, the nonprofit theater company has returned to its longtime home on Westmoreland Road — and its leaders say the move feels less like a relaunch than a homecoming.

The organization got its start around 2009 as a low-key gathering spot for poetry readings, small performances and community talks, evolving over the following decade into a full production company staging five to six shows a year.

It closed when the pandemic hit, just short of its 10th anniversary, and spent 2022 through 2024 producing as a traveling company, staging shows at venues in Charlotte, including the Booth Playhouse.

When its original space in Cornelius became available again, the company jumped at the chance to return.

“We’re just really, really thrilled to be back in Cornelius, to be back in Lake Norman,” said Marla Brown, the theater’s lead producer. “We all live around here and know the area really well, and it’s just very satisfying to stand in the lobby and be able to greet people by name.”

Upgraded space

The building itself got an upgrade during the time away. Crews tore out a dropped ceiling to make room for better lighting and sound equipment, added a proper green room and opened up more space in the lobby.

The audience faces a stage roughly 20 by 25 feet, keeping audiences just a few feet from the actors — an intimacy Brown says is central to what the space offers.

That closeness is part of the draw. Visitors describe the vibe as something between a neighborhood living room and a small comedy club — the kind of place where the person pouring drinks before the show might end up being the most memorable part of the night, and where audience members who arrive alone find it easy to strike up a conversation with strangers.

Brown recalls one show from the theater’s earlier run that captured just how close that connection can get. During the final scene, an actor struggled to lift a heavy suitcase and carry it out a door that doubled as the theater’s own entrance.

A spectator in the front row got up and opened the door for her — breaking the fourth wall before another spectator could stop him. The cast brought him up for the curtain call afterward.

It’s the kind of moment, Brown said, that can only happen when the audience isn’t just watching a play, but almost sitting inside it.

Setting the stage

Brown, who has a doctorate in theater performance and criticism and teaches as an adjunct at UNC Charlotte, said the theater isn’t trying to compete with larger venues in the area, including the Cain Center for the Arts.

“What they do and what we do are two very different things,” she said. “But there are so many people up here, and the way we can connect with one another is through these live, local ways of coming together in community spaces.”

The company operates without paid staff — administrative work is handled within each production — and is guided by a volunteer board that includes Alan Singerman of the Davidson Film Club and Jessica Zinger of Jessica Zinger Productions.

Brown said the theater is looking to add board members with backgrounds in marketing and publicity, carpentry and building skills, or fundraising and grant writing.\

Showtime

Beyond its own productions, the Warehouse also opens its calendar to outside groups looking for an affordable place to perform, including improv troupes and stand-up comedy shows, generally scheduled around the theater’s own rehearsal and performance calendar.

The fall lineup includes “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?,” directed by Nan-Lynn Nelson, a former Broadway understudy for Angela Bassett, running Nov. 6-15. A production of “I’m Gonna Marry You Tobey Maguire,” ran earlier this month from Cornelius-based Jessica Zingher Productions.

In February, the company will move to the Booth Playhouse in Charlotte for “Constellations,” produced in partnership with UNC Charlotte, before returning to Cornelius in March for “All My Sons.”

The improv group 704Play and a parent-themed stand-up comedy show also recently performed at the theater.

Rather than announcing a full season a year in advance, Warehouse plans in roughly four-month blocks — fall, winter into spring, and a lighter summer stretch — allowing the company to add shows as rights become available or opportunities arise.

Local focus

Brown said the theater hopes to reach both newcomers to the Lake Norman area who are used to a local theater scene from wherever they moved from and longtime residents and retirees looking for something new to try.

“There is a hunger for the local professional brand of theater, where you have trained people who are crafting,” she said. “Rather than have a youth (production), we want to try to program creativity targeted at adults who may want to capture something they wish they had done earlier.”

Tickets for special events run around $10; tickets for full productions average about $20.

More information on tickets and the full schedule is available at the theater’s website.