Palace Theatre, Performing arts center in Marion, Ohio.
The Palace Theatre is a historic movie palace and performing arts venue in Marion, Ohio, built in a Mediterranean style with ornate plasterwork, arched ceilings, and decorative details across three floors. The main auditorium seats around 1,440 people and the stage is large enough to accommodate full theatrical productions as well as film screenings.
The Young Amusement Company built the Palace for $500,000, and it opened on August 30, 1928, as its tenth theatre and one of the last American movie palaces in the atmospheric style. Opening night offered two performances: organist Banks Kennedy played his new piece "Everybody's Welcome to the Palace", four vaudeville acts followed, and the silent film Excess Baggage was screened. Sound equipment arrived only the next year. In 1975 the Palace Cultural Arts Association bought and renovated it.
The Palace Theatre draws audiences from across the Marion area for concerts, plays, and film screenings throughout the year. Walking in, you notice how the space encourages a shared experience, with rows of seats facing a stage that has hosted generations of local and touring performers.
The theatre sits in downtown Marion and is easy to reach on foot from the central part of the city, with parking available nearby. Visitors with mobility needs will find accessible entrances and adapted seating options inside.
John Eberson gave owner V.U. Young a bag of birdseed on opening night, a joke about the stuffed pigeons Eberson had installed to complete the outdoor illusion. The ceiling's constellation patterns twinkle through holes in the plaster, and a Brenkert Brenograph Jr. projector hidden in the east side wall casts clouds overhead.
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