DURING 1928, THE LAWNDALE FREQUENTLY promoted British silents whose unheralded leading men had names like Percy Marmot. Vaudeville performances were supplemented by boxing on Tuesday and Wednesday nights and “Chorus Girl Contests” on Fridays.The Lawndale opened on October 19, 1927. Beneath twinkling star lights painted on the ceiling to resemble the night sky, theatergoers sat in the 2,200 seat theater (quite large for a neighborhood movie-house) for the virgin showing of  A Girl From Rio. The next years saw many British silent films, vaudeville performances, boxing nights on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and “Chorus Girl Contests” on Fridays. In the summers, the theater closed.

The Lawndale Theatre opened October 19, 1927 with Carmel Myers in “The Girl From Rio” plus acts on the stage. It was located in the North Lawndale community on W. Roosevelt Road at S. Pulaski Road. It was a rather large neighborhood movie house, seating 2,000, which later featured burlesque, and after that, movies once more, before it was closed in 1963. It was known as the Rena Theatre in its later years. Most recently, the former theatre had housed a church.