Theater Row stages a comeback

Theatre Row has become Theater Row -- with brand-new banners to prove it.

In a 1992 image-burnishing effort by an organization of theater operators, a collection of about 10 small theaters along Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood was dubbed Theatre Row. The most visible elements of the project were trees and banners.

The trees survived, but the banners gradually disappeared -- as did the theater operators organization, which had no stable source of funding.

Now the row is back, thanks to the Hollywood Media District, a self-financed business improvement district that includes the row as well as surrounding areas.

New banners went up last week, funded by $20,000 from the Media District. They’re snazzier than the old ones, which offered a single image of a man taking a bow.

The new banners feature a series of nine shots of actors from recent row productions as well as large numbers that serve as informal markers for particular theaters. Publicity materials for shows will now say, for example, “at number 5 on Theater Row” instead of relying on hard-to-read addresses.

The eastern and western boundaries of the row are marked by banners that depict a curtain opening, as motorists enter the row, and others showing the curtain closing, as they leave. The fabric was manufactured to last two years, and extra banners have been ordered.

Why the spelling change from “Theatre” to “Theater” -- even as some of the constituent companies themselves, such as Blank Theatre, use the “re”? Two of the theater operators and the executive director of the Hollywood Media District couldn’t come up with an answer. Finally, the banners’ designer, Doug Suisman, said that he spelled the word with an “er” -- he considers the alternative “archaic” -- and that no one complained.

“The row is finally coming into the 21st century,” he said.