[1][2] It was originally at the Wilkes Vine Street Theatre, now renamed the Ricardo Montalbán Theater, and some years later moved to a renovated location on Santa Monica Boulevard.

[4] It was likely inspired by the enormous success of the Hollywood Community Theater (1917–1922), founded by noted drama teacher Neely Dickson, that no longer had a permanent building after losing its lease.

Photoplay's pseudonymous gossip columnist "Cal York" reported overhearing a woman who wrote features for the movie magazines, Franc Dillon, who was one of the earliest supporters and possibly a founder.

[6] In 1933 they produced The Good Fairy by Ferenc Molnár, directed by MGM dramatic coach, director, and UCLA lecturer Oliver Hinsdell, a man Photoplay described as one "who teaches the M-G-M starlets to say 'a-a-a-a—' and pull in the 'tummy.

'"[7] It starred Marion Clayton, J. Irving White, Kenneth Thomson, Richard Tucker, Harry Stubbs, Sidney Christie, and Francesca Braggiotti.

[8] Eve the Fifth was also performed in December 1933, directed again by Hinsdell and starring Patsy Ruth Miller, Russell Gleason, Mary Jo Ellis, William Burenn, and Paul Hurst.

[16][17] That same year, immediately following the production, it offered John Entenza's A Notorious Lady, starring Paul De Ricon, Lora Treadwell, Adele Rowland, Grace Hale, and Robert Hoover, directed by Alexander Leftwich.

[26] A group of young singers including Felix Knight, Marguerite Lamar, Robert Grandin, and Eloise Horton, accompanied by Arthur Carr and a string ensemble and emceed by Durward Grinstead, offered a night of "opera vignettes" in 1937.

Columnist and producer James Leo Meehan – who happened to be her mother's second husband – noted that she hoped to use that stage to show that she could transition to the talking pictures, presumably because it was a place to hear their voices.

[33] Also making a rough transition from silent film, Theda Bara appeared there in Bella Donna in 1934, while she was married to Charles Brabin, with an audience reception that author Norman Zierold described as "more polite than enthusiastic.

[37] In 1936 two of the theatre's actors, Martha Chapin and Elaine Johnson, were photographed by the Los Angeles Times as they readied an old horse car for a fundraising fair to be held on the Harold Lloyd Studios lot.