Todd Bemis turns the key to let himself into the theater that’s been a part of his soul for more than 40 years and walks a well-worn path he knows by heart as he flips switch after switch to bathe the darkened space in warm and comforting light.
He pauses at the top of the Palace’s grand staircase, looks up at the ceiling, glances at the floor and says to no one in particular: “Hmmm, I see some plaster dust. We’ll have to see about that.”
And then he descends and sits on the step near the bottom noting that it’s the very space where theater and film legend Mickey Rooney sat decades ago during a run here of “Sugar Babies” to kibbitz with volunteers before the show and within minutes, Bemis cries.