The Connor Palace, also known as the Palace Theatre and historically as the RKO Palace, is a theater at 1615 Euclid Avenue in Downtown Cleveland, Ohio, part of Playhouse Square.
Construction Construction on Connor Palace began in the early 1920s and was the last of the four main theaters to be built in Cleveland's historic Playhouse Square. It was also the most expensive at an estimated $2 to 3.5 million. Edward F. Albee built it along with the three other main theaters, the Allen Theatre, Ohio Theatre (renamed the Mimi Ohio Theatre, and State Theater (renamed KeyBank State Theatre). Albee was a vaudeville impresario who founded the Keith-Albee Orpheum vaudeville chain and wanted to make Playhouse Square the flagship of his company.
The theatre was originally named the B. F Keith-Albee Palace Theatre, sometimes known as the B. F. Keith Palace Theatre or just Palace Theatre, in memory of Albee's partner Benjamin F. Keith, who died several years earlier in 1914. Alongside Albee in this endeavor was John Lorange, coined by newspapers as "the Father of Playhouse Square." Lorange and his partners had long since been aware of the expiring leases of many small theaters in the area and began buying up property along Euclid Avenue that would later be known as Playhouse Square. They wanted to revamp the area that had long since deteriorated and make it the center of entertainment in the Midwest.
Once the properties were bought, Albee was added to the project. The project had a mostly positive reception, with many locals excited about the idea of Cleveland becoming an entertainment hub akin to New York City and Broadway. However, some had doubts as Doan's Corner, as it was coined, was considered worthless real estate. A few years earlier, a local real estate tycoon had recommended to his customers that they "have nothing to do with Doan's Corner or you'll drop your bankrolls."
Albee and his partner had faced previous backlash when they embarked on a similar project in Boston. However, Albee ignored the hacklers, and Playhouse Square and Palace Theatre were a resounding success.
The theatre was designed by the Chicago architectural firm of Rapp and Rapp in the French Renaissance Style. The theatre was built with 154 chandlers, most of which have survived and sat 3,100 people. The interior was decorated with over a hundred paintings and various artworks from several famous artists. The main lobby dubbed the Main Hall, served as a gallery of sorts holding an impressive collection of thirty paintings. It held works from European masters such as Corot and Poussin.
A popular picture spot for visitors is the Blue Urn, which still stands near the main entrance today. It was created in Sevres, Italy, pre-World War I, and was picked by Albee personally at a local antique shop. It weighs a total of 325 pounds and is made of porcelain and Numidian marble. The theatre was built within the Keith Building and housed the largest electrical sign in the world on its roof. The modern Playhouse Square sign that overlooks U.S. Bank Plaza is a nod to the original sign.
The theatre had many amenities, which drew in many famous vaudeville performers who were eager to perform in such a state-of-the-art vicinity such as Grace Hayes and The Casinos. The backstage alone housed an indoor golf course, barber shop, manicure table, billiard room, and even a children's playroom. They also had a bronze switchboard with a marble border that was the only one in the world at the time. The theatre's paneling was painted in a deep mulberry shade that would later be affectionately coined "Albee Red" due to Albee's fondness for the color.
Another focal point of the theatre was a marble fireplace at the entrance of the stage, said to have cost $2,000, $32 459.89 in 2024. The stage itself was massive at 59 feet wide, 35 feet at its highest point, and 90 feet deep. There were seven floors of dressing rooms with elevator access to each room, and each room was named after a different state. Each dressing room had a separate room that housed a shower, bathtub, and medicine cabinet. The dressing rooms themselves were said to be lavishly decorated and included a dressing table with automatic lighting adjustments, a full-length mirror, a walk-in closet, and a small kitchen.
The entire theatre was designed with marble and gold accents that gave the theatre an imperial appearance. The marble used for the theatre was from Carrara, Italy, the same marble used in Michelangelo's David. It was said that Albee was so meticulous about the theatre that he went down to the docks where the marble was shipped and doused it in water with a hose. The water exposed any unusual markings or colors, and then Albee handpicked each piece he wanted to be saved for use in the theatre.
The theater also housed one of the largest woven carpets in the world, which ran from one end of the hall up the staircase and down the main lobby. It was made in Czechoslovakia and was hand-woven. The theatre housed many priceless antiques, which served to elevate the theatre's status as a place of high-class entertainment. Just before opening, Albee hired John F. Royal as the manager of Palace Theatre, a controversial choice due to Royal's relatively young age and inexperience. However, Royal had risen through the ranks of Albee's company and proven himself to be an excellent showman. Once construction was complete and Royal was hired, the theatre was ready for its grand opening.
Opening and beginning years The theatre opened on November 6, 1922, with vaudeville star Elsie Janis headlining. The show was sold out, with several high-profile guests of the entertainment world attending, like Marcus Loew, a pioneer of the motion picture world and founder of Metro-Goldwin-Mayer (MGM) film studio, and Adolph Zukor, one of the three founders of Paramount Pictures. Several vaudeville stars also attended, along with prominent theatre critics like Heywood Broun, a renowned New York journalist. The guest list also included several local theatre VIPs, politicians, and journalists from newspapers all across the Midwest.
The Grand Opening was a success, and critics claimed Palace Theatre as "the finest theatre in the world" and "the crowning achievement of Playhouse Square." From 1922 to 1926, the theatre earned unparalleled success, hosting live two-a-day vaudeville shows. They hosted the likes of Fanny Brice, Mae West, and Fred Astaire. In 1923, a production called "The Unknown Lady," starring Alla Nazimova, was removed from the bill after a local minister petitioned the theatre due to inappropriate content. In 1926, the Goodrich Silvertown Orchestra, directed by critically acclaimed Joseph Knecht, performed for three nights in November. The famous Silver Masked Tenor was featured in the performance. A twentieth-century phantom of the opera, his true identity remained a mystery to the public for several years until he was later revealed to be a man named Joseph M. White. He had gained such popularity through various radio shows that when he performed on the Keith-Albee Vaudeville circuit, he had to be personally escorted to and from the theatre by police.
George Burns and Gracie Allen were married on the stage of the Palace Theatre by a justice of the peace in 1926. Several minstrel shows were also performed at the theatre between 1922 and 1928 and were extremely popular among the primarily white crowd. Ironically, the Palace also hosted several African American entertainers who performed around the same time, including the comedy group Williams and Walker Co., known for using comedy to subvert harmful racial stereotypes.
The rise of motion pictures Despite the Palace Theatre being built for Vaudeville acts and even though they sold 1.7 million tickets in their first year alone, the increasing interest in radio and motion pictures caused a major decline in public interest in live performances. In 1925, James Weed, a manager at the theatre, gave in to public demand and installed a movie screen.
The first film to be shown was a silent film on the building of the Trans-Continental Railroad by John Ford called "The Iron Horse." The tickets cost 25 cents. The first talking movie to be shown in Ohio was played at the Palace Theatre in 1926 after the installation of speakers.
In the summer of 1926, motion picture films were added to the Palace's much-awaited Summer program. The first film to be shown was "The Volga Boatman," a silent film starring William Boyd, a silent film actor from Hendrysburg, Ohio, and Elinor Fair. Vaudeville remained a staple at the Palace Theatre with performances of the likes of Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope, and Bing Crosby, but the film became the primary draw.
In December 1928 the Akron Motion Picture Theatre Owners' Association offered membership to local theaters showing both vaudeville and film, including the Palace Theatre. In January 1929 the first technicolor film was shown, depicting several famous movie stars modeling the newest fashions. In the 1930s, the theater was renamed RKO Theater. RKO theatres showed several films, but they often showed films starring William Boyd. Several talking movies were shown at the theatre in 1930, including "The Life of the Party," a technicolor comedy film made by the Warner Brothers before the establishment of the Motion Picture Censorship Code.
In 1933, prohibition in America ended, and Ohio became one of the first three states to legalize the buying and selling of alcohol. In response, the theater installed two new bars and began selling alcohol during performances.
In 1937, a former mail carrier for "The Plain Dealer" had just made his fourth performance at the theatre when the manager encouraged him to try his comedy sketch in Hollywood. The young man confessed he did not have money for a train ticket, but the manager believed so greatly in his talent that he paid the fare for him. The kid would later go on to become a famous comedian Red Skelton.
The end of Vaudeville and Palace Theatre Vaudeville continued to decline as the Great Depression created a need for cheaper entertainment. The theatre began removing more and more live acts from their program and replacing them with films that were cheaper to make and produce. In the 1950s, Vaudeville was completely dead, and the theatre quit performing live acts altogether.
An innovation in 1952 revolutionized motion pictures called Cinerama. It created movie screens three times larger than ever before. In 1956, RKO management decided to install Cinerama screens in the theatre to mark the new era of entertainment. The new screens required three projectors and a new updated sound system. The sheer size of the renovation led the theater to remove 1,800 seats to make space. The new system was unveiled on November 14, 1956, and there were lines leading all the wait out of the theatre. However, the success was short-lived, and ticket sales saw a rapid decline in the late 50s and 60s.
Post-World War II saw the rapid migration of people to the suburbs, and that, along with the mass production of television sets, meant fewer and fewer people were looking to the theatre district for entertainment. By March 1969, Playhouse Square had completely deteriorated, with Hanna and Palace Theatre being the only theaters still open. Newspapers had been predicting the theatre's closing for several months, and many articles were released reminiscing on the glory days of vaudeville and live theatre. Newspapers even interviewed old employers who had worked at the theatre during its golden age.