Meet the Knight Theater. It’s shiny and new, and it’s one of four constituents of the unfinished Wells Fargo Cultural Campus. Situated on Tryon Street (near the impending Mint Museum extension, the newly-opened Bechtler Museum for Modern Art and the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts and Culture), the theater is open and ready for your patronage.

Operated by the North Carolina Blumenthal Performing Arts Center, the Knight joins the Blumenthal’s roster of snazzy theaters. But in a city with a plethora of performance spaces and more than a few suffering arts organizations, what is new and different about this theater? And perhaps more importantly, will the programming fill the seats?

The Knight Theater seats 1,200 people. For comparison, the Belk Theater seats 2,100 and the smaller McGlohon Theater is around 730. The Knight is equipped with state of the art everything, but provides a more intimate atmosphere than the Belk. The space is closer to the size of a typical Broadway house, says Tom Gabbard, President of the North Carolina Blumenthal Performing Arts Center.

Cosmetically, the Knight is breathtaking. Once the construction is complete at the Cultural Campus, this arts compound will have magnificent surroundings. The lobby space has large glass panels allowing open views into the Bechtler Museum. The three-tiered lobby area can be used for purely social functions and is connected to the Bechtler’s own lobby. In its recent christening of the Knight, the North Carolina Dance Theater made use of the lobby space for their Light the Knight gala, and the area proved perfect for dancing and cocktails. The lowest floor of the Knight is home to the Wells Fargo Auditorium, a small hall with excellent audio-visual capabilities.

The theater boasts an updated tech set-up when compared to the Belk. Sound, lighting– every component is of the highest caliber. Equipment that clients might need to rent in some theaters is provided, in-house. The stage itself is a nicely sized hundred by forty feet – compared to the McGlohon whose stage is a mere twelve feet deep. A sixty-five-piece pit sits beneath the stage. Resident company North Carolina Dance Theater is already pushing the stage in its abilities; the adjacent loading dock was used as a wing in order for the company to use every square foot of danceable area. The stage floor is best suited for dancing, as it is constructed with a springy second layer.

In the theater’s few functioning months, the inevitable glitches have quickly been realized and remedied. Between the unofficial opening and the recent official opening, tech systems have had a chance to settle down. A sound table situated under a balcony and to the far right was swiftly reassigned to the center of house. The staff and crew at the Knight Theater have been working to create an ideal space for any act.

The backstage nether-regions of the theater were a personal favorite on a recent facility tour. Though few of us will ever need to fire up the dressing room halogens or spend time decompressing in the green room before an entrance, the freshness of this area is worth noting. The backstage rehearsal room is surely a draw for ensemble warm-ups for any company.

Despite all the bells and whistles of this contemporary theater, what makes the Knight Theatre truly special is the Blumenthal’s programming vision, which includes unconventional and cutting edge acts. The Aluminum Show opted for the Knight Theater as its first United States tour stop, after considering the Belk. An Israel-based group, the show consists of an amalgamation of special effects, acrobatics, jazz and modern dance, puppetry, dazzling aluminum costumes and lighting. Says Gabbard, “the experience is much stronger in the Knight.” The Aluminum Show runs through January 31. In early April, look for rocker-violinist David Garrett at the Knight, who regularly combines Mozart and Metallica with an impressive light show.

Gabbard hopes that the Knight will eventually serve as the desired space for plays, a genre which has historically been assigned to the Belk. Next season, he hopes the Knight will play host to several touring theater works. Chamber music also finds a worthy space in the Knight. Recitals that would have been previously situated at Belk Theater will find a new home (and the intimacy necessary for chamber music) there as well. Sure, Joshua Bell and Jeremy Denk can sell 2100 seats, but let’s hear them in a proper chamber music space!

If searching for huge, opulent spectacle, the Knight is not the place. “If you want to see a chandelier crash or a helicopter rise, go to the Belk,” Gabbard quips. Phantom of the Opera, Tosca, and Mahler will always need the Belk. But the Knight provides a venue for acts that may not have sustained themselves in the Belk Theater.

While primarily a road house for touring shows, the Knight will also be a viable performance space for Charlotte’s local performing arts groups. The North Carolina Dance Theater is a resident company of the theater; all performances but The Nutcracker will be performed in the Knight, beginning this spring. With the eventual purchase of a shell, the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra could program newer, more contemporary concerts in the theater. Opera Carolina already has a romantic evening of Latin song slated for February. As the Knight continues to be strongly branded, more usage by local companies is anticipated.

The Knight’s inaugural season had an unofficial opening in October with An Evening of Bluegrass and Banjo with Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers. Singer-songwriter Neko Case appeared at the Knight in mid-November, proving the space is valuable as more than a playhouse. Some locals have already graced the Knight’s stage; at a December open house, tour-goers were invited to belt karaoke from the stage.

The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and Parsons Dance, a contemporary company, are both set to appear on the Knight’s stage this spring (February 9-14 and March 25-28, respectively. The best jazz in Monterey comes to Charlotte on February 26 with the Monterey Jazz Festival on Tour, featuring greats Kurt Elling and Regina Carter. In March, the space hosts comic Gabriel Iglesias’s Fluffy Shop Tour, an energetically hilarious musing on Iglesias’ personal issues (March 18). Juilliard-trained siblings The 5 Browns will bring their fusion of classical and jazz to the stage on February 16. This sort of eclectic, inventive programming is exactly why the city needs the Knight.

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This article was made possible by a grant from the Arts & Science Council.