Prior to 1900, a "theater" was usually a place to see live entertainment:
vaudeville,
opera or live music. A good example in Madison was the Fuller Opera House, built in 1890 at 5-10 West Mifflin. Motion pictures arrived around 1900. They were initially shown in stores and warehouses, and often called "
nickelodeons" because a ticket cost five cents. The Fuller Opera added the new motion pictures to its schedule, and other movie/vaudeville theaters were built: the Majestic Theater at 115 King St. in 1906 and the Amuse Theater at 16 E. Mifflin in 1910. In 1909 the Grand Theater at 204-206 State St was built specifically for motion pictures. The new motion pictures had become somewhat a craze. By 1913 there were eight theaters in Madison showing only movies, and as many a tenth of the population went to a movie each day. Once the market was established, some theaters were created extra fancy to stand out from the others - movie palaces. They were larger, with lavish interiors meant to transport theatergoers to exotic places like
ancient Egypt, the
Palace of Versailles, or
Moorish Spain. Madison's Orpheum was such a movie palace, and it remains the most intact survivor of the city's movie palaces. Madison's Amuse Theater was expanded and remodeled as the Strand Theater - a 1,500-seat theater more lavish than earlier theaters, but less elaborate than other later movie palaces. A year after the Orpheum opened, the Capitol Theater opened just across the street, creating a small theater district. It was a movie palace like the Orpheum, and also designed by Rapp and Rapp. Some of the old Capitol Theater survives within the Overture Center. Next year (1929) the Eastwood Theater opened on Madison's near east side. It was a movie palace, but less elaborate than the Orpheum and Capitol, and has since been reworked into the Barrymore Theater. ==Facts==