My first memory of the Morris was coming to a concert here and I walked in and I thought, Wow.

Before the shows even begun, the show started.

And it's the Morris.

This thing is so beautiful.

I just love this Morris.

I really love it.

To be in a city like South Bend, you might not expect a place like this to be here.

If you ever get a chance to stand at the center of the stage, you're standing where the greatest performers in the history of civilization stood.

We've had Elvis.

We've had Houdini.

Frank Sinatra, Cab Calloway, the Mills Brothers.

The biggest movie moment in South Bend happened when they premiered the Knute Rockne All American movie with Ronald Reagan.

There just hasn't been anything like it before or since it was quite the night in South Bend.

It did real well up until about 1959, when the new black and white televisions came and everybody was home watching the televisions.

It almost got destroyed.

There was a like wrecking ball ready to to tear it down.

And local philanthropist Ella Morris saved it from the wrecking ball.

For this thing to still be standing a hundred years later, I'm so glad that people had the vision to not tear down and build a parking lot.

It's magical when those doors open and thousands of people rush through on a show night.

There's nothing like it.

It's the emotional epicenter of our community.

You are a staple, the foundation on which the arts can continue to grow and flourish through.

It's important that you exist in South Bend, Indiana, to let the people know that South Bend, Indiana is not South Bend, Indiana, It is the world of the arts.

A Century at the Mooris is brought to you by our gold level sponsors and by our silver level sponsors.

Thank you.

[car horn] In the 1940s, the Morris Performing Arts Center, then known as the Palace Theater, welcomed a legendary Hollywood director.

At the time, however, the future Oscar winner, Sydney Pollack, was still a young South Bend resident looking for an escape.

He snuck into this place and he would spend hours, if not days, just traveling to, you know, exciting places and just absorbing everything he could.

He went on to be one of the most prolific artists in the film industry who ever came from this area.

Sydney Pollack One of the most amazing stories I think in the city of South Bend's history when it comes to the arts.

He was here.

He's part of that energy that lives in this place.

The theater that helped inspire Sydney Pollack was born during a dynamic time in the entertainment world, and its design highlighted these changing times.

Although built to accommodate silent motion pictures, it was also created to host performers from the then popular vaudeville circuit.

So vaudeville was a form of entertainment where people developed a short act.

It could be anything, could be jugglers or fire eaters.

Trained dogs were popular.

So you have things coming out of Chicago.

You definitely have things coming out of Detroit.

Indianapolis and South Bend was a major stop in between.

There were so many theaters there were so many here.

There was no television.

So everyone went to get entertained in the vaudeville house.

It was a growing city, an industrial city.

I think it speaks to the growth in the vibrant community here that they could have so many theaters.

People loved it.

A businessman named Jacob Handelsman visited South Bend probably around the time of the last global pandemic, the Spanish flu.

And he decided that this was a place that was deserving of a 3000 seat theater to be one of the most elaborate playhouses in America.

Handelsman, along with his architect J. S. Aroner, included in their plans.

an accompanying ballroom next door to the theater known as the Palais Royale.

The ballroom is completely gorgeous.

I mean, it's all the gold and all the decorations.

The architects had this really interesting take.

They wanted anyone who walked in here to feel like royalty.

Jacob Handelsman wanted to give people feeling as if they were taking a trip to Europe.

So there's a lot of different styles of architecture on the outside of the building, that's a Spanish revival in the lobby.

We have different edge work around the doors.

There's a Greek key pattern.

There's a what's.

Called the Egyptian egg and dart pattern.

Our rotunda.

Area, which is on the second floor, is Patterned after the Palace of Versailles in France.

There's also the Griffins up in the alcoves up here, and those are from Greek mythology.

They're meant to protect the environment.

I have to say that my first experience here as a toddler lived up to the architect's expectations because I felt special and I was just five years old.

It's a pretty neat place.

The palace opened to the public on November 2nd, 1922, as nearly 3000 people wrapped around the block.

Once inside, Mayor Eli F Siebert addressed the crowd.

Now, aren't you proud of South Bend?

About two years back, a dirty row of shacks stood on the side of this theater.

South Bend ranks first now not only for its industries, but for its theaters.

The management of this theater has promised to give you the best.

There is in entertainment.

During its early days, the management made good on its promise, as some of the biggest stars of the day graced the stage.

Will Rogers.

The Ziegfeld Follies.

Burns and Allen.

The kids from our gang and even a young Bob Hope.

It's reported that magician Harry Houdini even chained himself to the marquee as a publicity stunt, which was probably welcomed by theater management as filling the seats was critical.

It wasn't like a show today where it starts at seven and you stay till the end.

You might not roll in when the program starts and they would have several starts a day.

You didn't necessarily have to stay for the whole thing, which is why they had to keep your attention.

So it was really important that the show not bogged down anywhere.

They not book an act that wasn't popular or wasn't really working for the crowd, because that could be a moment where the crowd walked out.

One variety of performance that filled seats during the days of vaudeville reflected the racist attitudes of the country at that time.

Minstrel shows often featured white actors performing in blackface while portraying stereotype latent skits and musical performances depicting mainstream America's distorted view of African-American life.

The acts remained part of vaudeville until its demise in the mid 20th century, but it would be sex, not race, that would cause controversy at the palace in its early days.

And there was always this tension between decency and popularity.

And so things might go towards the raunchy side and there'd be an outcry about the taste level or the morality of the entertainment offerings.

And then they'd sort of push back the other way, but then maybe it wouldn't sell as many tickets or be sensational.

And so managers had to really walk quite a fine line when they put together these programs.

One performer who took the stage in June of 1935 created quite the controversy in town as recalled by one South Bend resident.

Sally Rand performed her balloon and fan dances at the theater, and many of the Notre Dame students would bring slingshots and paper clips to the productions and pop the balloons leading to near riots.

That was when Notre Dame took a hand and managed to get Rand's show closed.

Decency protests would not spell the end of vaudeville, but its days were fading fast, even as the palace welcomed its first patrons back in 1922.

That year saw Indiana's first commercial radio station go on the air in South Bend.

The new medium would have a drastic effect on the entertainment world.

The unfortunate thing for vaudeville is you could tell the joke for 30 years.

The same joke.

Radio comes along and ruins it.

You can't tell the same joke twice when you're, you know, projecting to masses like that.

And it created a whole different kind of entertainer.

As radio forced performers to adapt, advances in movie technology forced the theaters themselves to transform.

And it didn't have sound initially, so it couldn't play talking pictures.

That revolution happened very quickly about 1928, and everybody scrambled to install sound equipment so that they could play talking pictures.

The talking picture playing at the Palace on January 10th, 1935, strangely mirrored events taking place outside of the theater that same day.

"Where's your friend Jimmy?"

"He's out in the kitchen cooking up something."

"Combustion!"

[explosion sounds] At 4 a.m., a bomb exploded on the corner of Michigan and Colfax, ripping through the Palace Cafe on the ground floor of the Palais Royale Building.

Although insurance fraud was suspected, the case remains unsolved to this day.

After repairs, the Palais was ready to welcome dancers once again, and the big band era was in full swing.

[Jazz music] There were a lot of famous jazz musicians that came through the Palais Royale, Cab Calloway.

Guy Lombardo, Glenn Miller Orchestra.

Dick Jurgens, Louis Prima.

Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey, Duke Ellington.

It was just great to watch those people perform.

People came and they danced.

Obviously, people met and married, from going to the ballroom.

So I think a lot of like the young men that attended Notre Dame would go to these dances and meet local women.

And that's how there would be families.

Sometimes the bands even performed on the main stage of the palace itself.

One act to do so was Cab Calloway and his band.

He come out in a white tuxedo and he.

Heidi, Heidi, Ho!

"Heidi, Heidi, Heidi Ho!"

Where I was brought up, it was... wasn't anything like that around.

There were polka bands.

But they were... What?

Accordion, drum.

And much, much different music.

And, man, he was just super.

He's a great performer.

[Singing] [Applause] While big bands were sharing the world of music with the residents of South Bend, one film in 1940 brought South Bend to the World.

The biggest movie moment in South Bend happened when they premiered the Knute Rockne All American movie with Ronald Reagan.

Not just here, but across the street at the Granada and down the street at the Colfax.

They had all of the cast here, and they closed off the street between the Granada and the Palace, and they had a big square stage in the center where they had everybody and they were introducing them.

And it was a huge event.

Thousands and thousands of people gathered in the streets.

And, you know, it's like, what for?

Well, maybe for the chance to glimpse somebody famous coming into the theater.

Such a gala night and movie stars and fancy cars.

There just hasn't been anything like it before or since it was quite the night in South Bend.

And while the premiere of Knute Rockne All American brought Hollywood to Michiana, Michiana has had its own impact on Hollywood over the years.

The region has given the entertainment world the talents of Vivica A.

Fox, Larry Karaszewski, Michael Warren, Nathan Gunn, Traci Johnson, Adam Driver, and many others, all who found a calling in the arts.

Art is transformative.

It takes you from where you are to where you probably need to be, or can be.

It was the arts that opened the door for Sydney Pollack to become a world renowned film director.

And while shows at the Palace were an inspiration when it would be a South Bend school teacher that ultimately helped Sidney and his brother Bernie channel their creativity.

And they were students of James Lewis Cassiday, who was a noted local theater teacher.

Mr. Cassiday really inspired people to have a love of theater, of love of the arts.

And Sidney and Bernie both went on to have professional careers.

Sidney, as an actor and a director and Bernie as a costume designer.

When Mr. Cassiday retired in the seventies and they held this retirement party at Notre Dame, they seated Mr. Cassiday next to Sidney at a table and set up a phone, and people all night would call in from all over the country and wish Mr. Cassiday well in his retirement.

Another Oscar winner has a slightly more indirect connection to the palace.

Andrew Jones has won two Academy Awards for his visual effects work on Avatar and The Jungle Book.

His father, Rick, claims his son's success was predetermined at the Palace Theater in the 1950s, when Rick was working as an usher.

I keep telling him, remember where all this came from with me making popcorn in the Palace Theater back in 1954 and 1955.

I said, that's where it started.

Some of the butter that rubbed off on the popcorn also rubbed off on you.

They didn't always have the best movies here.

It was a it was considered a B movie house.

But the one good thing is every now and then, they'd have a stage show.

[Trumpet] Ralph Marterie was a big band and they were touring.

We got to see the whole show two nights in a row and then when my buddy and I were doing the sign change that night, out comes the assistant director here called Rosenberg.

But we called him Rosie.

And then the head manager here, he yelled out to me, he says, Rick, when you're done, come on in and we'll introduce you and get you some signatures.

And so that was just a typical nice gesture that he made.

And he and Rosie did that to all the ushers.

They were just as nice as can be to you.

You can tell when you're working for somebody that wants to treat you like family.

And that's exactly what they did here.

And so I didn't know that they were falling on tough times.

With the level of competition there was in South Bend, it was inevitable that not all of these movie houses could survive.

And everybody was home watching the televisions.

And so the attendance dropped down in the theater.

We weren't going to see vaudeville anymore, not by the 50s.

We weren't going to see too many live performances, not here.

And so it was just really tough to make that work.

There are too many seats and not enough people to put in them.

And so all of the theaters in South Bend start to struggle and many of them fail In the late 50s 367 00:20:29,494 --> 00:20:31,129 The theater was unbelievably close to the end.

People may not understand that the furniture had been auctioned off.

The light fixtures were being removed.

There was a wrecking ball ready.

It was ready to to tear it down.

The palace would find its savior when South Bend resident Ella Morris heard of its coming demise.

My mother was a child when this happened and she was saying that she remembers when her mother heard that the palace was going to be turned into a parking lot.

And my my grandmother wasn't very large, she was a very diminutive person.

And evidently she just rose right up and said, well, that's not going to happen.

Ella Morris purchased the building for an undisclosed sum.

We don't know how much she bought it for, but she turned around and sold it to the city for a dollar and saved it from the wrecking ball.

And so we owe her we owe her for this building.

The reason it's still here.

I walked through the doors of this theater, and the first thing I look at usually is the portrait of my great grandmother, Ella Morris.

And it makes me very proud to know that she gave this wonderful gift to the community.

And I think that my hope is that this building will always be here and that generations keep coming in and learning and enjoying.

If I got to see Ella, I would give her a big hug and say thank you.

This community.

What would downtown be?

What would this region be without the Morris.

Always had that love of the arts.

When I when I think of my grandmother, I just I always that's that's the first thing that pops into my mind.

Mrs. Morris's love of the arts may have stemmed from her desired career path as a young woman.

I have a picture of my grandmother when she must have been about 18 or 19 years old, and they actually labeled it Actor.

That's because that's what she thought she would be when she grew up.

And of course, her life changed radically when she met my grandfather.

So she switched from being perhaps her her dream of being a professional actress to just being a very heavy supporter of the arts.

Among the arts organizations supported by Mrs. Morris was the South Bend Symphony Orchestra, which had been performing at various venues throughout its history.

With the rescue of the palace, The symphony now had a permanent home.

In honor of Mrs. Morris's vision and generosity, the theater was renamed the Morris Civic Auditorium.

The residence of the South Bend Symphony, to this day.

[Orchestra playing] This theater is home.

And you just cannot underestimate the power of familiarity.

To come to work here.

In my hometown, in my home theater, with all its history and the history and the memories we are creating.

Every moment that we're here.

This is a very special theater to me, and we love performing here.

[Orchestra playing] And every concert to me is very special.

I think the most important concerts, if I had to choose, would be our family series and Our YPDC our Young People's Discovery concerts.

When we have four performances and we fit about 2000 schoolchildren into each Performance.

But to have an influence at that age, to see what music can do, to see how music can inspire, to make connections with their curriculum, with what they're doing at school.

A lot of them play an instrument, but maybe they've never seen an orchestra.

It's so important because when I was about 10 or 11, my life changed when we did a school outing to a concert in London.

At that concert, there was one person who came out and stood next to the conductor and played something called a Trumpet and something called a Concerto and was written by somebody called Joseph Haydn.

And I was.

Smitten that next day I went to the music department, the trumpet teacher was there and I said, "Excuse me, I'd like to learn the trumpet, please."

It's very important for all children, but clearly children of color to see themselves on that stage.

As a child myself, when I saw Andre Watts, even though he's half German it didn't matter.

This was a black kid on the stage with the Philharmonic.

That was impressive to me.

And why couldn't I do that?

You know, it was always fun for me to work on the stage with the South Bend Symphony Orchestra as the conductor because they saw me, perhaps their first time seeing a black person in front of an orchestra.

Then I've been on Carnegie Hall stage.

I been on stages in Europe.

This is as impressive as Carnegie Hall.

It's a thrill every time I walk out of the stage for, you know, at the end of a concert or if I'm conducting the concert, it's it's a stage that has so many memories for me.

I've stood on the same stage that B.B.

King was on back in the day, you know, and has so much history on it.

The symphony would share its new home with some of the world's most notable acts.

There's been so many, so many people that have come through here.

Jerry Seinfeld, John Mellencamp.

REO Speedwagon, Aerosmith.

I know Louis Armstrong played there.

Tony Bennett was here.

He puts on a great show, Frankie Valli.

Oh, there's a couple of hundred more, but I can't think of them right now.

A couple of my favorites are, Chicago and Earth, Wind and Fire.

One of my favorite memories is when Chicago was here.

Sometimes in a show, it just feels electrified in the theater.

That was one of those nights.

I think when people come in here, they have a certain expectation of what the show is, and I often feel that they are blown away when they see somebody on stage performing live.

We got to see Bobby Vinton.

In fact, I'm like, You're taking me to see Bobby Vinton?

I loved him.

He was such a great performer.

Donny Osmond show.

I mean, he it just sparked you know, I think everybody came to think, oh, Donny, little Donny Osmond.

Well, he is a showman and he it was dynamic that night.

Harry Connick, Jr, the man was sick.

He had flu.

He felt horrible.

Be put on a three and a half hour show.

One of my earliest experiences of the Morris was coming to see David Copperfield with my grandfather.

It was truly a magical evening in the theater, not only on stage, but just being in here in the aw of what this space was like.

I must have been probably in sixth grade at the time or something of that nature.

And I remember then every time David Copperfield came on TV, it was like, I know that guy.

I got to see him right, right in my own hometown.

Broadway tours would also find their way to the Morris, thanks to the efforts of a local nonprofit called the Broadway Theater League.

Everyone thinks of Broadway as 42nd Street and the great way that there were.

No, no Broadway is in your heart.

And by you allowing the Broadway to come through, you're just an extension of what goes on in New York.

That's who you are.

And the more you open your arms up to receive and also that we just receive but to birth forth a Broadway project, you're keeping the arts alive.

For many years.

South Bend's Broadway Theater League was led by executive director Anita Borda, who took a hands on approach to securing shows for the Morris.

In those days, you know, Anita would say, I called New York and we can get this show.

I mean, it was all it was not like it is now.

But she had a very good relationship with the promoters and so forth.

And she was a huge advocate of the theater.

And she was very early on and always wanting one show that families could come to.

She had a lot of vision.

Among the many shows brought in by the Broadway Theater League was the 1986 tour of Pippin, directed by Ben Vereen.

[Singing] Bob Fosse's Pippin, means the world to me.

Bob handed me the baton said, Direct this and we took it to you and you received us.

[Singing] As Broadway productions became more elaborate, it became clear that the Morris would have to adapt to remain a suitable venue.

And people didn't realize that half the show was left on the truck because it just physically would not fit in the building.

So we got to see some of the shows where it's almost like a watered down version of it.

I remember one show in particular was Will Rogers Follies.

There was a great show and they had this girl perform and she was in this big champagne glass.

Well, we never got to see the champagne glass because it wouldn't fit through a loading dock door.

Ironically, the same tool that threatened the theater in 1959 was utilized to create the new Morris.

They used a wrecking ball, and I was standing in the back watching it, and it was exciting and the emotional and we were crying because the building was gone.

It's like, Oh my God, this is permanent.

No turning back now.

But that was such a moment for that.

And that's something that I don't think will ever happen again.

That feeling of, you know, this is the end of it and this is going to be new.

That was a pivotal moment in the theater's history because that opened the door to these nationally touring Broadway acts, which have become synonymous with the Morris today.

After being closed for 26 months for renovations, the newly renamed Morris Performing Arts Center, re-opened in March of 2000 with Chicago the musical and a grand reopening celebration featuring actor and director Ben Vereen.

It's always wonderful when you're the first.

And being be born into the new expression of themselves and allowing me to come in and be that birthing place.

That was wonderful.

And look at you now here going on 100 years.

My God.

The renovated Morris allowed for greater spectacles to live on its stage, but at its core, it continued to do what it had already been doing for decades.

This is a quote from an actor named Simon Callow It says, "To enter a theater for a performance is to be inducted into a magical space, to be ushered into the sacred arena of the imagination."

I think that's very true.

[Singing] But nothing is like the theater.

It creates a reaction from you.

It makes your world bigger.

For those 2 hours you're transported to somewhere else and completely.

I think theater is a cathartic release for so many people of time.

They can just be with the folks in a room that transforms into something that they are not used to.

[Singing] And it enriches us.

It helps us to celebrate our life.

It talks to us in a way that words don't.

You can hear a piece of music and it does more for you sometimes the words will ever do.

It just makes life better.

It really does [Singing] It's special to see a parent and a child giddy over a moment, to see somebody that maybe entered the theater with kind of a stoic nature be moved to tears at intermission because of a number that maybe took them there.

This is the best part of humanity.

It's amazing how such an experience can be so intimate between me and the performer or performers, but yet I'm sharing it with 2500 other people.

And there's like a special thing that I've seen happen in a lot of shows.

Not every show, not that the shows aren't good, but there is when there's magic happens between the actors and the audience, and it just is so vibrant.

What's magic about it is it's live.

There's something magical about being present.

I love it to know that you've reached somebody and touch somebody's heart or soul and made a difference in their lives, it's rewarding for the performer, it's rewarding for me.

It is not just those on stage who make a performance magical for the audience.

Theater magic is something special.

It's we let everybody think it's magic, but it's a lot of hard work.

So people think that, oh, that thing just came down from out of nowhere and it's just beautiful backdrop.

And it's like, Nope, there's a gentleman back here pulling on this rope, bringing down that that thing very, very quickly.

And there's like ten people moving these set pieces on and off, but they're all in black, so you can barely see them.

So it's like they don't even exist, but they do.

So this is what makes theater magic.

And like in the ushers, you don't think about them too much, but you wouldn't know where to sit if they didn't tell you.

Our ushers, who are all volunteers working day in and day out, show in and show out to ensure there's a high quality experience here for everyone who comes through the door.

I love my ushers.

They're the best.

They really are.

Well, let's see.

I have been doing this since October of 1985 so it'll soon be, what, 37 years.

We really want to make sure that the patrons are having the best night.

They go out and they say, you know, this was a marvelous show and we had a really good time.

You know, the people greeted us and they were pleasant with us.

Welcome to the Morris.

May I have your ticket please?

It's just such a good feeling to see people come together and enjoy, you know, and have a good time.

It's unique, and I think it's because people there truly care and they bring forth their best and it's palpable.

It's refreshing.

And it's just part of the fiber there that is so uniquely special.

Because I will tell you this, the people at the Morris... Topnotch.

We have so much love for the building.

We take great pride in it.

I feel it's an honor to work here.

By everyone doing their very best.

They make the Morris, the magnificent Morris.

In addition to hosting national Broadway tours, the Morris also serves as a venue for local arts organizations.

I firmly believe that everybody benefits if there's a rich arts community here, and luckily for us there is.

And the Morris has been an anchor for that.

Southold Dance Theater is a local dance company.

That has been doing The Nutcracker.

In South Bend.

I believe last year was their 40th anniversary doing it.

So every December we we look forward to hosting them here.

They spend a week doing rehearsals and they usually have three or four performances.

And we're lucky that we have a local group that puts on an extremely professional production.

It's interesting to see the kids that actually danced in Southold and see where they are now.

Some of them have gone on to dance at the Joffrey Ballet in Chicago.

Southold and being able to perform at the Morris has really changed my life completely.

I never thought this would be something I'd be pursuing, and now, it's all I think about most of the time.

This year I'm going to be competing at the Prix De Lausanne in Switzerland.

Prix De Lausanne is the premier dance competition in the world and they're the top dancers from every country go.

And it's it's a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Without the Morris, without a space like this, we wouldn't have been able to foster some local groups like Southhold ballet company or South Bend Civic.

Those groups all benefit from the space being here.

And because those groups exist out in the community, again, the community is the richer for it.

So the arts has this kind of multifaceted impact on a community, right?

We talk about the kind of esthetic beauty and cultural access that happens and that kind of social unity.

But it's also the economic impact.

We have people that come from Ann Arbor, Michigan, Cleveland, from from Cincinnati, from Chicago, from Indianapolis.

And they just have a whole weekend here.

And they all come and say how beautiful this theater is.

All the restaurants and hotel rooms and commerce that's supported, we estimate an average of about 200 jobs a year are supported just because we have the theater here.

And that's jobs outside of the theater.

There's so many jobs that are created because of this place.

And I venture to say there's more people working backstage behind the scenes than there are out on the stage at any given time.

Being the wife of a banker, I know that having something like the Morris Civic Auditorium is really resonates with people that my husband wants to bring into town and to move to South Bend, and he always likes to show off the Morris because it's such an extraordinary building and they do so many amazing things here.

Organization called Pollstar, which actually measures all the theaters in the world and they rank them according to ticket sales and attendance and so forth.

And the Morris has constantly over the years ranked certainly in the top 100 many times, around 75 or so.

And I think the latest ranking we were number 55 in the world.

It's a remarkable thing when you think about the size of South Bend, the size of this region.

We're creating a city where people want to live, having access to this this quality of world class entertainment right here in our own community creates that type of place.

Another way, the Morris contributes to the community is through the long running Fridays by the Fountain concert series.

It's free to the public.

We have food trucks out there.

We have a band.

We always get a good crowd for that.

It's truly a great lunchtime event, you know, I just applaud them for putting this on every year and keeping, you know, area bands viable and giving them exposure.

And it's just really good.

A lot of our fans show up here and.

Another draw to downtown South Bend is the Palais Royale Ballroom, which serves primarily as a venue for private events.

The ballroom had fallen into disrepair during the sixties and seventies, but the community would rally to give it a new life, one that still includes a healthy amount of dancing.

25 years ago, basically, this place was a dump.

I walked in here and these beautiful walls and all this gilding was spray painted black.

It had been a nightclub.

It had been a bowling alley.

I went up in the mezzanine and I found receipts and I thought, What are these from?

And then somebody told me, Well, there was a bowling.

Alley here and they were receipts for bowling.

Shoes, things like that.

And it took a real commitment and vision by a lot of people, the community, to see what this place once was and what it should be again.

And they restored a single medallion.

So there was this black, huge black room and a single medallion that people could come in and look at.

And just that was so moving to people that they said, yes, this should definitely happen, this should get fixed.

And they were able to restore the Palais.

And what a treasure it is as well.

They brought craftsmen out of retirement to replace a lot of the crown moldings and the special moldings and architecture.

Our theater is amazing, but the Palais Royale is also amazing because there aren't very many of of us left.

I think we're there's only two left in the nation of of a of a theater ballroom combo.

The elegance that exists in that historic ballroom, you don't build places like this anymore.

And so to have a ballroom like that in our community, to be able to host these life experiences.

In this very room.

1942, Frances Gil and Theresa Keel had their first date, and now, 80 years later, their youngest grandchild celebrates her wedding reception here.

It's a place unlike any other.

It's great that the whole facility has really found itself.

And soon after the restoration of the Palais, the Morris would add a new 57 foot wide marquee to help welcome patrons.

In March of 2020, the marquee advertised what was intended to be the theater's longest running Broadway engagement.

Disney's The Lion King.

[Singing] So I'll never forget the date.

March 12th, 2020.

It's a day in the theater world that came to be known as Black Thursday.

It was the day that all the theaters closed due to COVID.

We spent the ensuing few weeks refunding tens of thousands of tickets and disappointing a lot of folks.

But we didn't know.

And the early days of the pandemic, we didn't know how long was going last.

It was like time stopped here.

The people working the show packed up their personal things and left the next day.

But the the show stayed here, the the set, the costumes, the props, everything was here.

It was kind of eerie.

I, I walked backstage and looked at, you know, here's the lion, here is the elephant.

And just all sitting here like they could have shown back up any day.

It was July that they actually came back and started packing things up.

We were holding out hope for so long that something could change and maybe they could come back and finish the run.

But, you know, little did we know.

We were effectively dark for almost 18 months straight.

Not a show, not a single show, not a single patron at any one of these seats for a year and a half.

That's incredible.

When we were able to reopen again, we were able to open at about a 25% capacity and we were blocking off seats, requiring masks and all that kind of stuff.

So I was talking to people at the health department every other week, getting updates, county health department about what we needed to do and what protocols we needed to follow.

And was tough, but we came out on the other side and we're all happy that we're back.

During its COVID induced rest, the theater revealed some signs of its age.

We discovered during Lion King that our 100 year old concrete floor, the main floor that holds all the seats, was crumbling.

That's like, yeah, we knew it was time that we needed to just start doing something or this theater won't be around for another 100 or plus years.

As the theater neared its 100th birthday.

The community once again rallied to support the Morris.

So the Morris Performing Arts Center, ever since Ella Morris gave it over to the community, has been owned by the community.

And time and time again, the community has stepped up to help care for the space, to help illustrate how important it is to them.

I think of the folks who fundraised to help restore the Morris on two previous occasions before this 100th year moment, and then this time around, an initiative to help ensure that we remain extremely competitive, extremely accessible and extremely relevant for the next 100 years.

And we have a very generous community.

We do we have over 30 people that are in the 2022 society, which is $100,000 or more.

But we also have people who've given $5 and $10.

And we we really want this to be a community investment.

What you see going on here is the removal of every single seat in the entire theater.

They'll be replaced after we pour a brand new concrete floor.

This is the original 100 year old concrete floor.

[Applause] And I'm so excited for what's getting ready to happen and I'm so excited for the next generations that will experience great entertainment and arts right here at the Morris Performing Arts Center.

Thank you.

The current fundraising campaign goes beyond the bricks and mortar of the theater itself.

Equity in Arts program is something brand new that we're unveiling as part of the Morris 100 initiative.

We went out to the community and asked, What do you think of the Morris?

Is it accessible if you go?

What do you like about it?

If you don't go, why not?

And we heard some things, some things that were perhaps hard to hear, but things that we needed to hear so we know how to change and evolve for the future.

As we began to dig into the history of the Morris and stuff, we began to see the committee began to see that some changes needed to be to be made to how we interact with the community.

When you walk through these doors, if you're not a person familiar with the arts, it can be very intimidating.

If you don't see anybody that looks like you in that space, if none of the ushers look like you, the ticket takers, not like you.

If the audience is very white and you're not, you feel like you're in this space that doesn't accept you.

But I think it's important that the Morris represents who's the constituency of the city is.

You don't just get people to come.

There's a bunch of things that you have to do and you have to be very intentional.

And they don't start at the Morris.

They start at other places like the South Bend schools.

Currently in its early stages.

The equity in the Arts endeavor is taking its first steps in addressing disparities and partnering with groups like the American Theater Guild to do so.

The Theater Guild, they're amazing.

They've brung CATS here.

They called up South Bend Schools They say Kareemah, we want South Bend schools to have 100 tickets for kids to come to these shows.

So the kids that came to the shows, that was the first time they've ever been to the Morris.

And a lot of them, the first time they'd ever seen a live show.

We also take actors out to schools.

We take schools to the to the Morris, who could work with performers that are right off Broadway.

And we can literally step them through the very things that aren't really taught in schools.

It's filling in the blanks.

You know?

We find so often that some, but not all have been offered.

I would want this to be a place that would also expose minority children to things that they would normally have not thought about.

Behind the stage, there's all of these other things that go on.

Makeup and wigs and hair and clothes and all of these things that that they can do as a career.

And I think the Morris gives that opportunity for kids to dream imagine wander.

The students that get in the arts programs and they are involved in the arts they do better academically.

To help introduce young people to the arts.

A new program is pairing South Bend High School students with ushers at the Morris.

And that will not only give them exposure but if we can connect them with the ushers and the ushers just kind of show them around and what they're supposed to do and how to greet people and all that.

That is a win win situation as we can help young people, but also the people coming in that see younger people or minorities saying, okay, those people here, you know, younger people or whatever that look like me, you know?

So that in itself can be huge.

We need to look at as part of the arts and equity program, how do we bring in the acts that are designed for not just people of color, but for everybody?

And from that, we can all learn more about ourselves and about each other.

I learn every day about the cultures of other people that they are.

All of these things compiled makes us a better community.

Overall.

The community may soon see a new building as part of the Morris Performing Arts Center.

Plans for the Raclin Murphy Encore Center include amenities to enhance the visitor experience and also provide space to help spur local artists to success.

I love the fact that they are trying to create a communal space to give someone a home for their practice, their thoughts, their considerations.

People will meet, their people, commiserate and share ideas.

And isn't that like the greatest thing that ever happened in history?

As the Morris turns 100 years old, it continues to overcome and evolve like the community in which it stands.

I think because it's been through so much, I think it feels all the more valuable today and I love it.

I love this building.

How many 100 year old theaters are even doing what they're doing now and growing?

Come on.

This is still that same rooted good that showed up 100 years ago in South Bend and another generation into generation into generation get to enjoy it.

You're 100 years old.

You're a tradition.

You are the foundation for us as artists to walk among you.

We feel the spirits of all those who came before us.

Now, young people now know whose footprints they're walking, and they be able to walk proudly because you're standing.

This theater has seen it all, but it's still here, providing that same world class entertainment that it did when it opened on November 2nd, 1922.

The mission hasn't changed to entertain and provide access to world class performing arts.

It's pretty special.

Happy 100th birthday to the Morris and now see on your 200th birthday.

Okay?

A century at the Morris is brought to you by our gold level sponsors and by our silver level sponsors.

Additional funding for A Century at the Morris has been provided by and by.

Thank you.

This WNIT local production has been made possible in part by viewers like you.

Thank you.

[Closed Captioning by: Nicholas Ramirez]