Palace Theatre

The Palace Theatre in Stamford, designed by Thomas W. Lamb and opened in 1927, is haunted by former owner Mary Vuono who lived above the theater for fifty years until her death in 1978. Staff watch seats fold down on their own in empty rows, hear whistling in vacant halls, and see shadows move through the house between shows.

The seats move on their own at Stamford's Palace Theatre. They fold down, then flip back up. Nobody is sitting in them. Nobody is near them. Staff have watched it happen.

The Palace Theatre opened on June 2, 1927 at 8:30 PM, designed by Thomas W. Lamb, one of the most prolific theater architects in American history. The local press called it "Connecticut's Most Magnificent." Mary Vuono built it to capitalize on the success of her Strand Theater next door, which she'd opened in 1915 as one of Stamford's first vaudeville and silent movie houses. The Palace was bigger, grander, and flashier. During the 1930s it briefly operated as "Vuono's Palace" before dropping the possessive.

The Three Stooges performed here. Lucille Ball. Jimmy Dorsey. The theater was the center of Stamford's cultural life for decades, and Mary Vuono ran it for over fifty years. She lived in an apartment directly above the theater. When she died in 1978, she didn't go far.

Staff think the ghost is Mary.

The whistling is the most commonly reported phenomenon. People hear it throughout the theater, in areas where no one is present. Not a tune, exactly. Just someone whistling, the way a person does when they're walking through a space they own and feel comfortable in. A proprietor making rounds.

Then there are the shadows. They move through the theater in places where the lighting can't account for them. Not vague feelings of darkness. Movement. Shapes that shift and travel with apparent purpose, then vanish.

The seat movement is the most visible evidence. Theater seats are spring-loaded. They fold down when you sit, fold up when you stand. At the Palace, seats fold down and snap back up without any weight applied. Staff have observed it during setup for shows, in empty sections of the house, sometimes in sequence, as if someone is walking down the row and sitting briefly in each chair before moving on.

In 2012, Riseup Paranormal organized a four-hour interactive investigation at the Palace with forty participants. The investigation aimed to document the claims that staff had been dealing with for years. The results went into their case files.

Mary Vuono spent the majority of her adult life inside this building or directly above it. She opened the Strand Theater in 1915, built the Palace in 1927, and ran both venues until theaters stopped being profitable. Vaudeville died. Talkies replaced silent films. Eventually the Palace went dark in 1980. A major restoration in 1983 brought it back to life for live performances.

But Mary's relationship with the building spans six decades. She built it, named it, programmed it, lived above it, and died in it. Fifty years of walking those aisles, checking on her theater, making sure everything was right. If any ghost has earned the right to stay, it's someone who put that kind of time in.

The Palace Theatre still operates as a performing arts venue on Atlantic Street in downtown Stamford. The exterior has been carefully preserved through multiple renovations. Lamb's original design holds up beautifully, the kind of early 20th century theater architecture that makes modern venues look like convention centers.

On show nights, the theater fills with people and the activity goes quiet. It's between performances, when the house is empty and the lights are low, that the whistling starts. The seats fold down. The shadows move. Mary is checking on her theater the same way she did for fifty years when she was alive. She just hasn't stopped.