The history of the Palace Theatre in downtown Frostburg has always been a story of change and now we need your help to complete the next stage in its 120-year evolution.
From the theater’s early days as a nickelodeon through the silent period and into the era of “talkies,” from black and white to technicolor - anyone has been able to buy a ticket, settle into a seat, and be transported by the magic of cinema at the Palace. Behind the magic has always been a community - film lovers devoted to keeping Frostburg a place where movies live. Today we still line up on Main Street each month to see a film with neighbors. We volunteer as ticket-takers, projectionists, and popcorn sweepers. We always raise the roof…like we did over the past three years by literally raising money to put a new roof on the Palace.
But the roof isn’t the only update the Palace needs.
Our volunteer staff has been carefully nursing along the theater’s 20-year-old projection unit and 70’s-era sound system through recent years. This technology served us well for a long time, but its time has passed. We are looking ahead to the future and have embarked on a process of bringing state-of-the-art 5.1 surround sound audio and 2k digital projection to our cinema. We are calling this effort he Sound and Vision Project.
The surround sound will soon be installed, and the Palace will reverberate with crisp, immersive audio. The next stage is the purchase and installation of a $80,000 2k digital projection system. This will deliver picture quality that is as sharp and clean as it gets, offering audiences an unrivaled viewing experience.
To make these projection upgrades, we need your support. The movies are alive in Frostburg because the community has chosen to keep them alive, year after year. We hope you will choose to help the Palace in its next evolution. Whether you can give one dollar or a few thousand, come to an event, or just help spread the word you will be helping us “project confidence” in the future of the Palace Theatre—in the future of film in Frostburg.
The Palace has always told great stories. But maybe its greatest is the story of the theatre itself. It’s a story of change, of community, of new technologies used to do an old thing—gather people around a light in the dark for the telling of tales. Together, we can keep that light flickering in downtown Frostburg and ensure great cinema will always live in our community. Together we can bring the gift of sound and vision to the Palace.