The vaudeville bills: what actually played, in the cities' houses, for this ground's audiences

BOUNDARY-PRINTED · THE PALACE, SOUTH BEND · 1910–1930

No vaudeville house ever stood on this ground, so the bills this section owns are the bills its audiences actually attended — the county seat's, at boundary size, from the house's own record: South Bend's vaudeville seat began as the Orpheum Theatre, opened in 1910, and moved in October 1922 into the new Palace Theatre at 211 North Michigan Street — built by the Ralph Sollitt Company to J. S. Aroner's design for a million dollars, part of the Orpheum circuit, and in the house's own centenary words "the most modern theater in the country" on its opening. The bills ran continuously, a new act every ten minutes, at 22 cents' admission in the LocationsHub summary of the house record; Broadway troupes travelling New York to Chicago stopped and played the Palace stage on the way through. The names the house's own history prints for its 1920s–40s course are the vaudeville-and-after roll this ground's families saw from its seats: the Ziegfeld Follies with Fanny Brice; George Burns and Gracie Allen; Houdini; Will Rogers; Amos and Andy in the Clio summary of the record; and, as the stage turned to concert and film, Bing Crosby, Bette Davis, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley. Sound ended the form on schedule: the first talking picture in 1929, the last vaudeville act in March 1930 (the Building South Bend record; the Discover Indiana summary prints the last vaudeville act in 1930 without the month — the two agree to the year and are printed so). The house then ran as a movie palace, hosted the world premiere of Knute Rockne: All American on October 4, 1940, was voted for demolition in 1959, was saved by Ella M. Morris — who bought it and sold it to the city for one dollar — and stands today, restored 1998–2000, as the Morris Performing Arts Center, on the National Register since 1985.

Mishawaka's houses are that city's whole under its own running, and print here at pointer only. What this section settles is the audience's geography, and it is the same geography as the tractors and the fair: the townships produced the audience and the cities produced the bill. No Granger name stands on a Palace bill in any record reached, as performer or as act — the also-of-record count of the first article governs — and no township hall ever mounted a competing bill. The vaudeville record of Granger is a seat in the Palace, and it is printed at that size because that is its true size.

Sources:

1. Morris Performing Arts Center, centenary history (morris100.org) — the Palace built 1922, Orpheum chain; continuous vaudeville, a new act every ten minutes; the Follies, Brice, Burns and Allen, Houdini among the printed names; the 1959 rescue and the 2000 reopening as the Morris.
2. University of Notre Dame, Building South Bend — Palace Theatre, 211 North Michigan Street: built 1921, opened October 1922 as the new home of the Orpheum Theatre (first opened 1910); first sound film 1929; last vaudeville show March 1930.
3. Discover Indiana / Morris record summaries — 22-cent admission; the 1930 last-act year; the October 4, 1940 premiere; National Register listing, June 5, 1985.