Starlit Screens: Preserving Place and Public at Drive-In Theaters

• Main Authors: Robin Conner, Paul Johnson
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Emory Center for Digital Scholarship 2008-10-01
• Series: Southern Spaces
• Subjects: Business and Commerce; Film/Television/Radio; Photography; Atlanta Studies; Arts
• Online Access: https://southernspaces.org/node/42575
• ISSN: 1551-2754

Paul Johnson, Starlight Six marquee, Atlanta, Georgia, 2005. In June 2008, Robin Conner and Paul Johnson drove from Atlanta, Georgia, to northern Virginia, exploring and documenting drive-in theaters. They discovered a range of outdoor theaters struggling to stay commercially viable. While two were defunct, one was revitalized through the creation of a non-profit. Many theaters were even thriving through well-designed appeal to audiences of hipsters, families, and moviegoers looking to consume nostalgia at the drive-in. In this photo essay, Conner and Johnson offer a brief history of drive-in theaters and illustrate their diversity across contemporary southern rural, urban, and suburban spaces.