Theater—as we’ve claimed often before in this corner— serves as a beacon of light in a community with a dwindling population but an abundance of heritage and hope.
All the light in the world, though, won’t make up for substandard sound in a theater that presnted its first “talkie” way back in 1929 and has shown thousand of movies using evolving generations of equipment since then.
Sound, as it turns out, isn’t a simple matter for a 2,500-square-foot cavern of an auditorium, no matter that volunteer supporters have put a great deal of effort into improvements in recent years. Film technology stays a step ahead.
On the strength of sound (yes, I did say that) professional advice, the Palace board has identified problems and a workable solution.
And this month, leading up to Giving Tuesday, donors stepped up to fund it. As of this writing—at noon on Tuesday, a few hours before the midnight Nov. 29 deadlinefortheCommunity Foundation of West Texas “amplification” of gifts to a range of nonprofits, the Palace’s campaign stood at $4,228.16 of its $5K goal. Lots of thank-you notes will be going out this week!
Suffice it to say, we’ll be tuned for sweeter basses and trebles in the Palace’s movie and live-show audio soon.
Mark your calendars now for a celebration Saturday night, March 4, with historic-theater aficionado Mike Robertson of Austin with “The Show Must Go On,” a lively armchair tour of Texas movie houses around the state—including our own.
Sounds like a winner to me.
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