The Weddington

The Weddington Theatre
                                                                                   by Shasta Gragg

Established 1910

Gone With The Wind and Love Story and ET.  Blue and green greek key shag carpets floors and walls.  King Kong - human sized - guards the room for ladies.  Lobby will forever smell of buttered popcorn.

Empty for decades.  A flash flood drowns a little boy under the stage.

Opens later for Freaky Fridays, a weekly concert series.  A reason for bored small town teens to gather, attempt to be cool.  The concerts, local groups going nowhere, slowly earn the labels boring, lame.  Freaky Fridays fades away.

An ambitious pastor, filled with spirit fire, sees the stage, aisles of seats, projector and storage rooms.  Spirit guy plants a church.  Popular in downtown poverty.  Speaking in tongues, falling on the floor.  A girl is covered by the blood in full water submersion.  A brother and sister’s miracle becomes a devastation when their father’s imminent death comes to fruition.  Crushed faith leads to church splitting fights and controversies are all that appears abundant.

Another pastor, not so fire filled.  A people pleaser in polo shirts and khakis.  Tame music and dry sermons pull a different congregation.  Outreach to the poor that called this home.  A guy and a girl kiss, say I do in front of sixty of their friends and family.  Baby dedication.

City grows bigger, wider.  Only so much room in the narrow valley.  A letter to the board of trustees, apologetic.  We need the space, government buildings will be here.  Find somewhere, anywhere, within two weeks.

Established 1910.  Demolished 2010.