The Dance Palace is a non-profit community center providing a wide variety of educational, recreational, cultural and community services to children, adults and seniors in western Marin County. The Dance Palace serves as the central community facility for the small, semi-rural coastal villages of West Marin including Point Reyes Station, Inverness, Olema, Nicasio, Marshall, Bolinas and Stinson Beach. Originally founded in 1971 as a studio for dance, in an historical building referred to locally as the "Old Palace", the Dance Palace has developed over the past 35 years into one of the most active community... show more

The Dance Palace is a non-profit community center providing a wide variety of educational, recreational, cultural and community services to children, adults and seniors in western Marin County. The Dance Palace serves as the central community facility for the small, semi-rural coastal villages of West Marin including Point Reyes Station, Inverness, Olema, Nicasio, Marshall, Bolinas and Stinson Beach. Originally founded in 1971 as a studio for dance, in an historical building referred to locally as the "Old Palace", the Dance Palace has developed over the past 35 years into one of the most active community facilities in the Bay Area.

The Dance Palace was established by seven young people who blew into town in 1971, looking for a personal and artistic home. One of the founders, Carol Friedman, was it's Executive Director for 37 years, and just retired in 2008. Another, Nancy Hemmingway, West Marin’s community librarian, is still active in the life of the Dance Palace. According to Nancy Hemmingway, they were “seven idealistic dreamers who found we were capable of doing wonderful crazy things and getting people in cahoots with us." Today the Dance Palace is run by a full-time Executive Director Dan Mankin, and four part-time staff people, Jessica Walker, Jerry Lunsford, Sandra Sheffield, and Nancy Vayhinger.

The Dance Palace began on Main Street, in the old Point Reyes Emporium building (now housing Cabaline) - a building that was without heat through the first winter. The young troupe ; struggled with the landlords (Gregory Val Goeschen and Alice Carrell) throughout the winter, keeping warm by wearing lots of clothes and hovering around the gas cooking stove, until they finally agreed to install heat. In spite of the temperature, early events included movies, dances, folk dancing classes for Tomales High School students, and the very first Holiday Crafts Fair.

In early 1972, Marin County Building Department inspectors closed the building down due to numerous code violations (including the existence of only one toilet shared by male and female alike). After extensive negotiations, and with the assistance of local residents Sim Van Der Ryn, John Burroughs and Michael Whitt who each donated a month’s rent, the Dance Palace re-opened with new wiring and a variety of other improvements. Finances continued to be rocky, until July of that year, when 4th District Supervisor Bud Barr, to the astonishment of his colleagues and the Dance Palace group, rammed through a pasted together proposal to provide $5,000 in County funding to support the Dance Palace. That year also saw the formation of the Palace Players, directed by Gene Ptak and Michael Jayson, presenting its first production: Muzeeka by John Guare.

The Palace Players continued to present exciting and unusual theatre productions including its first musical in 1974, Tom Paine. That year, photographer Art Rogers unveiled his first exhibit of Point Reyes Nation, a collection of photographs that includes many wonderful historical shots from the Dance Palace’s history, some of which will be featured in the Jack Mason Museum exhibit. Historian Jack Mason tangled with the Palace Players in 1975, when the group presented the West Coast premiere of the then-unknown playwright Sam Shepard’s Tooth of Crime. The poster for the show, which contains some nudity and rough language, included a warning for parents to leave their children at home. Unfortunately, the warning, which itself used a four-letter word, offended Mr. Mason and other Point Reyes residents and business people. Some posters were torn down, and the Point Reyes Downtown Businessmen’s Association (as it was then called), called a special meeting to discuss the matter. Ultimately, the play’s director Gene Ptak, Dance Palace Director Carol Friedman, Jack Mason and the Association were able to discuss the matter, with Jack Mason attending the show and writing a rather positive review for the Point Reyes Light. Performances were standing-room only throughout the play’s run. The show’s cast included current residents Charlie Morgan, Lisa Doron, Cathy Llewellyn and Steve Marshall.

Those were boom years for theatre at the Dance Palace. The Palace Players presented exciting productions including Threepenny Opera and Tango, and the Hot Tomales Theatre Company was formed and showcased works including The Rose Tattoo and A Streetcar Named Desire. According to a Point Reyes Light headline in 1975, “theatre is alive and well in West Marin.” More recently, Cubit Productions presented a variety of musical and theatrical shows at the Dance Palace, garnering Bay Area theatre awards for their production of Closer Than Ever which debuted at the Dance Palace in 1994.

In 1975, the group established the Friends of Dance Palace, a membership organization that supports Dance Palace programs, with annual dues set at $12 per person. In 1976 a $16,000 grant from the California Arts Council allowed the group to purchase its first theater lighting system (some of the instruments purchased then are still in use today) as well as support classes in dance taught by Melinda Leithold and Carol Friedman, photography with Art Rogers, poetry with Diane di Prima, and drama with Gene Ptak.
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