Over its hundred-some years, 118 West Parrish Street has been home to a handful of commercial ventures—bicycle shop, furniture store, home goods store. Next summer, it’s poised to offer something new to downtown Durham: an arthouse cinema.
Alex Maness and Jim Haverkamp, the duo behind experimental arts space Shadowbox Studio, say they hope to open the venue next summer. Named Skin and Bones Theater, the 50- to 60-seat flex space will be used for film programming, lectures, readings, and other events. Shadowbox Studio, located off Club Boulevard, will continue to operate separately.
“There’s not a lack of performance spaces in town, but there could be more,” says Maness of the plans for Skin and Bones Theater. “We’ve gotten such an enthusiastic response over the years with what we’ve been doing over at Shadowbox.”
Cinched between two of Durham’s most iconic locations—the Unscripted Hotel and Mechanic & Farmers Bank—the three-story building is owned by real estate group Eno Ventures and is currently being renovated. Skin and Bones Theater will occupy the first floor, which most recently was leased by gift store Chet Miller, now located off Durham-Chapel Hill Boulevard, and by local press Horse & Buggy’s storefront gallery, which owner Dave Wofford closed earlier this summer.
Maness and Haverkamp are artists and filmmakers themselves—Maness works as a freelance photographer, Haverkamp teaches in the film department at Duke University—and have witnessed firsthand the evolution of both downtown and the local arts scene. They ran the first scrappy iteration of Shadowbox off Washington Street, before the rental market necessitated a move further north, in 2015, to the venue’s current enterprising location: a storage unit.
“We miss the Durham of 25 years ago, when we first moved here, as everyone who’s been around can attest,” says Haverkamp. “I think for both of us, honestly, the loss of Man Bites Dog Theater is something we still think about. Both Alex and I did a ton of work there—it felt like a community space and creative hub. And we just want to try to contribute to that.”
Indeed, the landscape of the downtown core has changed significantly over the past two decades. Revitalization and a spike in the rental market pushed many longtime businesses out, while remote work has continued to stall daytime foot traffic downtown. As with many cities around the country, the downturn in local consumer spending is at odds with its density: Downtown Durham Inc.’s “2025 State of Durham” report estimated that nearly 9,900 people live in or adjacent to downtown, a number that is estimated to keep growing, with the April report citing 13 developments under construction that will add 1,243 market-rate units downtown.
A new business in an uncertain economy is certainly a risk, but, Maness says, “we wouldn’t be doing this if we didn’t think that it was a solid idea.” He and Haverkamp have kept Shadowbox’s programming humming for years; Haverkamp and his wife Joyce Ventimiglia also co-founded and ran the small film festival, Strange Beauty Film Festival, from 2010-2015.
“I think that people are hungry for this kind of programming. They want something more than just going to movies.”
Maness and Haverkamp also say they feel buoyed by the slow resurgence of mixed-use arts spaces in the area, citing spots like Mettlesome, NorthStar Church of the Arts, and Perfect Lovers. In the past two years, Night School Bar and Queen Street Magic Boat have also opened as neighborhood arts hubs.
“I’m encouraged because I feel like small, weird spaces have been slowly coming back,” says Haverkamp. “We just see this as just another voice to add to that.”
They plan to stick to the basics, in keeping with the venue names, which started as jokey shorthand and stuck: “We really want it to be very simple [and] direct, you know, very bare bones.” Limitations with the location of the building’s water pipes, for instance, led to an early decision: They’ll forgo selling ice and fountain drinks at the concessions counter and will trust that cans and bottles will suffice.
The real thing they hope people will turn out for is the kind of unconventional events that Shadowbox has steadily produced for years, as well as a programming format and space that invites people to linger. After all, a random conversation at the cinema is the way the two collaborators met: As they tell it, their friendship began while waiting in line for the bathroom at The Rialto Theater in Raleigh.
“I think that people are hungry for this kind of programming. They want something more than just going to movies,” says Maness. “It might be interesting to have a like, a talk with the film, or a pairing with a band or musician—more of an evening’s worth of entertainment, rather than just going and coming back. Come over to Skin and Bones and hang out with us for a little while, before and after the film.”
Maness and Haverkamp plan to launch a fundraising campaign in the spring. In the meantime, there’s no shortage of movies, live performances, and other events at Shadowbox.
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