By 9:30 p.m.Theater 5 was full, with a restless audience packing its seats. They clapped, shouted out boisterous approvals and even danced on occasion.

What prompted such audience participation at Cary’s Galaxy Cinema Thursday night?

Not the latest action flick or tear-jerker indie, but a live viewing of Sen. Barack Obama’s acceptance speech of his party’s presidential nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

The night was an official campaign event for the Cary headquarters of the Obama campaign, which paid $500 to rent Theater 5 from 7 to 11 p.m., said Siva Allu, one of the theater’s owners.

The event offered 270 free tickets, all quickly snapped up by the previous weekend, said Kim Yaman, Galaxy’s marketing director.

People like Dwight Peebles, 61, had grabbed the tickets quickly, eager to “be a part of history,” Peebles said.

Like many in the crowd Peebles, a marketing consultant from Cary, appreciated both the political and social changes he says Obama’s nomination represents.

So did Carol Birkett.

As a presidential candidate Obama “represents what our country is becoming in terms of diversity,” said Birkett, a social worker from Cary.

The senator from Illinois is the son of a white mother from Kansas and a Kenyan father. Birkett, 59, also applauded Obama’s stance on issues like creating more inclusive healthcare.

As a former hospital worker she has seen firsthand the effects of Medicaid cuts — emergency rooms stuffed with people having no insurance.

Obama spoke about his health care policy during his speech, which started at 10:15 p.m.

He also touched on other ways he hopes to help the middle class, which he believes the current administration ignores by focusing tax breaks and attention at the top of economic ladder.

Obama said he would provide tax breaks to the middle class and to companies that create jobs in America instead of shipping them abroad. He’d also like to create timelines for ending dependence on Mideastern oil and withdrawing American troops from Iraq.

He said he felt his opponent, Sen. John McCain, would continue those policies of the Bush administration that have largely failed.

“It’s not that John McCain doesn’t care, it’s that he doesn’t understand,” Obama said.

Obama peppered his speech with his own family’s failures and successes with government programs — his grandfather’s use of a G.I. Bill to get through college, his mother’s battle with insurance companies as she lay dying from cancer.

Andrea Twiss, 37, liked the personal references that Obama used, and liked the fact that he seemed so “real.”

“He’s what people need,” said the mother from Cary, noting that Obama hadn’t been blinded by a privileged background to the needs of everyday Americans.

“I liked the music,” interjected her daughter Isabel, 4, referring to selections like a live Stevie Wonder performance that played at the Denver convention at different points throughout the night.

Inside the Galaxy theater, local acapella group Fleur de Lisa, known for its original Obama anthem on YouTube.com, kicked off the evening with its own song and an audience singalong.

Yaman said that Galaxy has a long history of hosting different types of social events.

“We’re a community place; we don’t just show movies here,” she said.“Anybody can do this, they just have to let us know.”

She said that the Obama campaign had contacted the theater. The local Republican party had not expressed similar interest in using the theater, although an event is planned in Raleigh (see factbox).

The Republican convention was scheduled to begin Monday in St. Paul, Minn. At press time it was unclear if hurricane weather forecasts would push the event schedule back.