One block from the Wisconsin State Capitol, the Orpheum Theater began in the 1920s as a movie palace and still stages live performance. In 2008 the Orpheum was added to the National Register of Historic Places as Madison's best surviving representative of the movie palace era, and you can feel its role in a long local story of entertainment. Prior to 1900 a “theater” in Madison was usually a place for live vaudeville, opera, or music; a good example was the Fuller Opera House, built in 1890 at 5–10 West Mifflin.
Motion pictures arrived around 1900, first shown in stores and warehouses and often called “nickelodeons” because a ticket cost five cents. The Fuller Opera added motion pictures, and the city soon saw purpose-built venues: the Majestic Theater at 115 King Street in 1906, the Amuse Theater at 16 East Mifflin in 1910, and the Grand Theater at 204–206 State Street in 1909, built specifically for motion pictures. By 1913 there were eight Madison theaters showing only movies, and as many as a tenth of the population went to a movie each day.
In 2008 the National Register named this Madison's best surviving representative of the movie palace era.