The Connor Palace, also known as the Palace Theatre and historically as the RKO Palace, is a

theater Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actor, actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The p ...

located at 1615 Euclid Avenue in

Downtown Cleveland Downtown Cleveland is the central business district of Cleveland, Ohio. The economic and symbolic center of the city and the Cleveland-Akron-Canton, OH Combined Statistical Area, it is Cleveland's oldest district, with its Public Square laid out ...

Ohio Ohio () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Of the List of states and territories of the United States, fifty U.S. states, it is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 34th-l ...

, part of

Playhouse Square Playhouse Square is a theater district in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It is the largest performing arts center in the US outside of New York City (only Lincoln Center is larger). Constructed in a span of 19 months in the early 1920s, ...

. The theater opened in 1922, as Keith's Palace Theatre after B. F. Keith, founder of the Keith-Albee chain of vaudeville and movie theaters. It was designed by the

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

architectural firm of

Rapp and Rapp C. W. & George L. Rapp, commonly known as Rapp & Rapp, was an American architectural firm famed for the design of movie palaces and other theatres. Active from 1906 to 1965 and based in Chicago, the office designed over 400 theatres, inclu ...

in the

French Renaissance style French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Fran ...

, and originally housed live two-a-day

vaudeville Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic compositio ...

shows. The $2 million theater opened in the

Keith Building The Keith Building is a skyscraper in downtown Cleveland, Ohio's Playhouse Square theater district. The Keith is 272 feet tall and 21 stories, and houses the Palace Theater, a former flagship theater of the Keith vaudeville circuit. Retrieved on ...

on November 6, 1922, seating 3,100. The interior featured

Carrara marble Carrara marble, Luna marble to the Romans, is a type of white or blue-grey marble popular for use in sculpture and building decor. It has been quarried since Roman times in the mountains just outside the city of Carrara in the province of ...

and 154 crystal chandeliers, and the main lobby, dubbed the "Great Hall," was decorated with over 30 paintings. The advent of the motion-picture age led to the gradual replacement of the vaudeville acts with movies, although vaudeville maintained a presence at the theater until the 1950s. The Palace was subsequently transformed for the presentation of widescreen

Cinerama Cinerama is a widescreen process that originally projected images simultaneously from three synchronized 35mm projectors onto a huge, deeply curved screen, subtending 146° of arc. The trademarked process was marketed by the Cinerama corpora ...

, which required the removal of 1,800 seats. On July 20, 1969, the theater closed because of air-conditioning trouble, and remained closed due to financial difficulty. In November 1973, the Playhouse Square Foundation obtained the lease for the Palace, and began producing

cabaret Cabaret is a form of theatrical entertainment featuring music, song, dance, recitation, or drama. The performance venue might be a pub, a casino, a hotel, a restaurant, or a nightclub with a stage for performances. The audience, often dinin ...

shows in the partially reopened theater to attract attention to its efforts to restore Playhouse Square. In 1978, the theater was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artist ...

, along with the rest of the historic Playhouse Square theaters. After a $36.4 million renovation project, the Palace completely reopened in 1988 with 2,714 seats, making it the second-largest theater in Playhouse Square. The Palace was renamed the Connor Palace in 2014 to recognize a donation of nine million dollars to the Playhouse Square capital campaign by the Connor Family of

Hunting Valley, Ohio Hunting Valley is a village in Cuyahoga and Geauga counties in the U.S. state of Ohio, and an eastern suburb of the Greater Cleveland area. As of the 2010 census, the village population was 707. At the 2000 census, it was ranked the 6th hig ...

George Burns George Burns (born Nathan Birnbaum; January 20, 1896March 9, 1996) was an American comedian, actor, writer, and singer, and one of the few entertainers whose career successfully spanned vaudeville, radio, film and television. His arched eyebr ...

and

Gracie Allen Grace Ethel Cecile Rosalie Allen (July 26, 1895 – August 27, 1964) was an American vaudevillian, singer, actress, and comedian who became internationally famous as the zany partner and comic foil of husband George Burns, her straight man, ap ...

were married on the stage of the Palace Theatre by a justice of the peace in 1926.

References

"Amazing facts and figures"
Playhouse Square Center. 2003–2005. Accessed December 3, 2006.
"The Keith Building"
Emporis. 2006. Accessed December 3, 2006. {{authority control Theatres in Cleveland National Register of Historic Places in Cleveland, Ohio Theatres on the National Register of Historic Places in Ohio Cinemas and movie theaters in Ohio Movie palaces Cinema of Cleveland Historic district contributing properties in Ohio Theatres completed in 1922