Uptown Theater – Grand Prairie, Texas
Grand Prairie’s Uptown Theater is a historic downtown landmark that is rich with history and abounding with activity!
The Uptown Theater originally opened in 1950 as a movie hall, after closing its doors, the City of Grand Prairie purchased the theater and reopened it as a multi-use arts center in 2008. Complete with art gallery space, STADIUM SEATING, and a new and improved stage, The Uptown Theater is now hosting a multitude of live performances, including concerts, live theater, and dance.
In 1948, two brothers, Jerry and Sherman Silver, and their sister, Helen Meagher Fisher, a young widow with three children, bought the Wings Theatre on Main Street in Grand Prairie and moved to Texas from Minnesota. The brothers, who were already in the Theatre business, they’re excited about the possibilities in this small but growing Texas town of 13,241. Soon after arrival, the family also leased and ran the Texas Theatre, located a block down and across the street from the Wings. The Wings Theatre, which featured second-run movies, was thought to have been a converted grocery store, with a rickety wooden floor and a segregated balcony for its African American customers. The Texas Theatre, originally built as a movie house, also featured second-run movies.
The Silver family saw a market for first-run movies in Grand Prairie and soon began the design and construction of their third and most ambitious Grand Prairie movie house, the Uptown Theatre. The Uptown opened on March 17, 1950, as a first-run movie Theatre with 1,100 seats and also included a small stage for live performances. It opened as an un-segregated Theatre, years before other Theatres in the area followed suit.
Considered a state-of-the-art Theatre for its time, the Uptown featured a sloped floor in the seating area for optimal viewing of the stage and screen, a glass-enclosed “Cry Room” in the back for mothers and babies, spring-loaded seating units that would return to a vertical position when the seat was vacated vs. the stationary seats in most Theatres, and oversized chairs with ample legroom for customers “of size”. A large canvas mural adorned the lobby wall depicting the history of Grand Prairie from its pioneer beginnings to the Dallas skyline as could be seen from downtown Grand Prairie in the 1950s.
Entertainment over the years included films, kiddy shows, stage shows, minstrel shows, midnight shows for the Ling Temco/Chance Vought late shifts, and personal appearances by celebrities promoting their films. In the 1960s, battles of the bands and go-go contests replaced stage and minstrel shows.
When first opened, adult tickets were 35 cents and tickets for children cost 12 cents. Because of Mrs. Fisher’s frugality, the Theatre became known for its popular and unique pickle juice snow cones, which recycled the pickle juice left in the jars of giant pickles, and Old Maid popcorn bags of the half-popped kernels left on the bottom of the popper. During the 1950s, parents routinely dropped off their unattended children as young as three years old for Saturday’s kiddy shows. Playing full-time usher and part-time babysitter at the kiddy shows, Donna Meagher, Mrs. Fisher’s youngest daughter, was ten years old when she started working in the family business. Her older sister, Pat, was 13 and working in the more responsible areas of concessions and box office.
Uptown Theater is a historic downtown landmark that has been restored to its 1950’s glory and serves as a home for local productions by Grand Prairie Arts Council as well as regional and national touring acts including concerts, dance, and theatrical performances.