Location #39:

Mia's Theatre / Playhouse


Q.  Where is it supposed to be?


This is the interior of Mia's small theatre / playhouse, where she stages her one-woman play, "So Long, Boulder City ".

( A completely different location was used for the theatre's supposed exterior,
which will show up later on. )

In the script, it is referred to as "The Del Rio Theater", in North Hollywood.

Neither the fictional name nor the city location is real.


In the movie, we see the theatre's interior four times:


1:11:04:  Our  first glimpse is in that quick "City of Stars" musical montage, where we have a brief shot of Mia skipping down the stairs of a darkened theatre and shaking hands with a man, which I assume indicates that she is renting the theatre from him for her performance.



1:24:27:  After the first glimpse of the theatre's supposed exterior, this is simply a quick look at Mia standing on the stage inside the empty theatre, looking out at the where her audience will sit.



1:27:39:  We see Mia on stage performing her one-woman play. We see the last seconds of her show, as she turns out a lamp on the set.



She then turns to face the audience for the applause, and when she takes a bow we see that there are less than a dozen people in the otherwise empty theatre.

( And three of those are her own roommates. )

She sees that Sebastian's reserved seat is empty.



( But look closely when Mia takes that  bow.  Seated two rows behind her roommates, near the center, is 'Amy Brandt', the casting director who later discovers her.  That's impossible to recognize the first time you see the movie, but on a repeat viewing, look fast, and there she is. )



1:52:25 We see the theatre interior for the last time during the final fantasy montage that ends the movie, in a 20-second scene that paints an ideal portrait of what might have been, where Mia's one-woman play is a roaring success, the seats are packed with a full audience, she gets a standing ovation, and Seb is cheering enthusiastically from the front row.





Q. 
Where was it really shot?


These theatre scenes were filmed inside
the Hayworth Theatre, at 2511 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles
( near MacArthur Park, just west of downtown L.A. )

The Hayworth is a small theatre, which seats 197 people.

It's part of the same building that was the long-time home to
La Fonda, the locally-beloved mariachi theatre.

The building was designated by the city
 as a Cultural Historic Landmark in 1983.


Built in 1926, the Spanish-style building was originally a legitimate theatre known as The Masque Theatre.  In 1950, it became a movie theatre known as the Vagabond, The Hayworth company ( named after actress Rita Hayworth ) took over in 2006.  In 2014, the building was bought by TV writer Jenji Kohan, the creator of "Orange Is the New Black " and "Weeds."  They converted most of the space into offices for their production company and its writers, but at last word, the theatre itself is still available for rental for stage productions ( and, obviously, for filming ).

( Again, Mia's theatre is a hybrid of two different places: this actual theatre, used as the interior, and another building used as the supposed exterior. )


Here is a StreetView of the theatre's actual exterior:






Here is a link to a Google Earth 3-D view of the theatre.


    

Move on to the next movie location seen in "La La Land".

    

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