Silent Movie Day Mini-Festival
Doors: 5:30pm, Show: 6:30pm
4140 Broadway, New York, NY 10033
Thank you to 33 recent donors, we are very close to restoring the original Wonder Morton Organ to the point of having it make some sound. The years-long project – led by the New York Theatre Organ Society – most recently saw the restoration of the relay to the house left chamber as well as the reinstallation of several major pipes.
We will celebrate this accomplishment September 29 with a mini-festival of silent films accompanied by live organ as part of National Silent Movie Day. The lineup features Laurel and Hardy’s short "The Battle of the Century” (19 min.), Charlie Chaplain’s short “The Adventurer” (24 min.), and Buster Keaton’s classic “Sherlock Jr.” (45 min.). With a little luck, NYTOS will also present a demonstration of the Palace’s theatre organ, the first time it’s made sound in decades.
Tickets to this special event are only $25, with all proceeds supporting the theatre organ campaign.
Organ accompaniment will be performed by Ian Fraser. He is the first-place winner of the American Theatre Organ Society’s Young Theatre Organist Competition which was held at the 2023 Chicago Convention. When he was 16, after seeing a silent film accompanied by Bernie Anderson at Chaminade High School in Mineola, NY in 2017, he had the opportunity to sit at the console and play the theatre organ for the first time. Leveraging his ability to play by ear, Ian taught himself in just a few short years to play the theatre organ. He has performed at John Dickinson High School (DE), Atlantic City’s Boardwalk Hall (NJ), the Loew’s Jersey Theatre (NJ), the Union County Performing Arts Center (NJ), Babson College (MA), and The Grand Theater (PA) among others. Now residing in Plainfield, NJ, Ian is the house organist at the Barrymore Film Center in Fort Lee, NJ performing pre-shows before film screenings and accompanying silent films. He is also the house organist at the St. George Theatre in Staten Island, NY performing pre-shows for their “Better on the Big Screen” classic movie series and “Arts-In-Education” series where he plays for audiences of over 1,500 students in grades K-12 exposing the theatre organ to the next generation.
Built in 1930, the United Palace’s Robert-Morton Wonder Organ is the last one of its kind in the United States still in its original venue and one of the last remaining all-original theatre organs in the world. While the house left organ chamber is nearing completion, work remains to be done on the house right chamber, console, and stage lift. The United Palace is dedicated to restoring the 94-year-old Wonder Organ to its former glory.
Thank you to our donors – both present and past – who have helped us restore the “voice” of the theatre.
(The event is expected to end about 8:45pm, including a 15-minute intermission.)