Once there were four historic theaters operating in downtown New Orleans: the Saenger, Orpheum, Joy, and Loews State Palace. These establishments boasted gleaming facades and uniformed ushers directing droves of patrons to see the finest in American motion-picture entertainment, but this is 2011, and each is shuttered.

Over the past five years, there have been attempts to reopen each of them with mixed success. The Saenger had at one point pulled ahead until problems with financing delayed...