The Palace and the Morris: a new act every ten minutes

Vaudeville was a family bill. The Palace Theatre went up on North Michigan Street at a cost of one million dollars, built in 1921 and opened in 1922, its owners the Palace Theater Corporation, who raised the Palais Royale dance hall beside it as its companion. The Palace ran Orpheum chain vaudeville, a new act every ten minutes by its own billing, which made it the downtown room where a South Bend family could spend an evening the way later families would spend one at the movies: short acts, constant novelty, something for every age in the seats. The conversion came in pieces: the first movie showed in 1929 and the last vaudeville in 1930, and the room settled into its long second life as a downtown picture palace, crowned on October 4, 1940, when it hosted the world premiere of Knute Rockne: All American, the town's own football story shown first to the town.

The dollar that saved it. In 1959 the building was voted for demolition, and Ella M. Morris, the South Bend philanthropist whose name runs through this whole section, bought it and sold it to the city for one dollar. Renamed the Morris Civic Auditorium, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985, it closed in May 1998 for a full restoration and reopened on March 3, 2000, as the Morris Performing Arts Center, 2,564 seats, the room where South Bend families now take children to Broadway tours, the symphony and the holiday pops. The building's architecture, its Springsteen night in 1976 and its touring bills belong to this site's THEATERS section; this section claims only the family half of its history, which is most of the nights it ever played.

Sources

1. Morris Performing Arts Center, centennial history (morris100.org): opened 1922; Keith-Albee vaudeville; Knute Rockne: All American premiere October 4, 1940; Ella Morris 1959 purchase and one-dollar sale to the city; National Register 1985; closed May 1998; reopened March 3, 2000; 2,564 seats.
2. BroadwayWorld, Morris Performing Arts Center profile: Palace Theatre built 1921 at a cost of one million dollars.
3. Discover Indiana, Palace Theatre entry: Palace Theater Corporation house on the Orpheum chain; new act every ten minutes; first movie 1929, last vaudeville 1930.
4. Wikipedia, "Palais Royale (South Bend, Indiana)": companion dance hall developed alongside the theatre by the Palace Theater Corporation.