Have you ever been to a Dinner-Theater?

That's annoying, the pic didn’t come thru. That was half the point of posting this.

Actually it has now.

I am not worthy to have gazed upon the Glory of that ad.

That's quite an address:

[bold]662 East Mosquito Abatement Road (At the outfall pipe). [/bold]

Sounds fancy!

I fondly remember seeing a 1975 Connecticut dinner theater production of APPLAUSE starring Dorothy Collins, who was still fresh from her success In Broadway's FOLLIES. She, of course, was mildly miscast as the tempestuous Broadway diva Margo Channing, but she gave it her all and was quite charming. The stage was tiny and IIRC the only sets were a couple of A-frame ladders on wheels that the cast pushed and pulled around in different positions to create different "locations."

The roast beef and twice-baked potato made for a delicious pre-show dinner.

When I was in Atlanta for business, there was one right downtown. Some Agatha Christie thing, but I never had the time to go.

Which was too bad because it looked kind of interesting.

First the ad in OP's post is a fake...fun, but a fake.

I remember the glory (?) days of diner theater, where the actors were also the waiters. The meal would be served and then the actors had to change to get on stage in a matter of seconds, in some cases. During intermission, they served dessert and coffee...and then back on stage for act two.

Dinner theaters were always trying to save money. One had a roll of dry cleaner bags. The costumes would be sprayed with cheap vodka on the dark day, aired, and returned to the dressing rooms in the plastic bags to give the appearance that they were dry cleaned.

Who the hell was Ann Davis playing? It can’t be Guenevere. No simple joys of maidenhood left there

Maybe she was Nimue.

[quote]r6 When I was in Atlanta for business, there was one right downtown. Some Agatha Christie thing, but I never had the time to go.

Can't you admit, even now, that you could have MADE the time?

[italic]The truth will set you free!

[quote]r7 I remember the glory (?) days of diner theater

It's true the quality of the fries has radically descended since then.

I love how making fun of dinner theatres and dinner theatres jokes are still over the theatre culture (even tiny non-profits that no one goes to need to be able to look down on someone) but the truth is there are less than 5 that still exist in the U.S. They are gone.

I went to Chaffin's Barn in Nashville a few times. Mostly local talent. At that point, the Artistic Director was a flamboyant gay man. Usually two or three productions each year starred him mugging shamelessly. A lot of people thought he was hilarious. I just thought he was desperate for attention. The theater was a square in the round set, so actors entered and exited through the audience aisles. The food was mediocre.

They were full of odd casting (Paul Lynde as a leading man) and "not dead yet" stars who were lucky to get a "Love Boat" or "Love American Style" role. My aunts were always dragging my uncles to these things. Some were in tents like "Musicarnival" in the Cleveland area or in old supermarkets. They often were seasonal (the tent places, obviously)

They'd do "adridged" versions of Broadway shows plus "made for dinner theater" stuff like "The Nearlyweds", which was written by Gilligan's Island schlockmeister Lloyd Schwartz (son of creator Sherwood Schwartz).

I was a Concierge downtown Atlanta for many years , always got good feedback on Agathas .Was managed by this Lesbian former bartender at Crazy Rayz named Cat, nice woman .

Mutton or chicken....a phrase not heard since my 1963 Pan Am flight to London.

Atlanta is the kind of place where dinner theater would have been downtown, rather than in a tent or old retail building in the 'burbs.

[quote] “The Only Equity Theater In The Gulf With Its Own Tarpon Cannery”

One assumes that your coworkers and friends knew you’d gone to the show for several days after.

R8, that's a joke ad.

[quote]662 East Mosquito Abatement Road (At the outfall pipe).

Doesn't exist.

Yes, apparently fake and recently posted here.

"Wanna talk about it?"

Most dinner theater experiences should be talked about only in a trained therapist's office. "But, I'm still having those dreams about John Davidson strangling me..."

Have any of you east coasters ever gone to Tony and Tina's Wedding? When I used to hear Howard Stern in the early '90s, it was always brought up because several people connected to the radio show were part of the cast at one time or another. Being in Los Angeles, I had no idea whether the production was legit or cheesy, but they made it sound like it was some huge "interactive wedding reception" with rave reviews.

Agatha's looks fun. I wouldn't call it Dinner Theater though...more like a murder mystery show. Think Golden Girls and Blanche hosting a dinner at one where she "murdered" Connor Nesbit, her boss, who was having an affair with Posey McGlynn.

OP is that real? East Mosquito Abatement Road?

Sorry, Kendall Nesbit @r23

If you were alive and anywhere near adulthood in the 1970s, you almost certainly attended at least one performance at a dinner theater. (Unless your family were church types, in which case you did nothing that was fun.) I saw a lovely little "I Do! I Do!" with Vivian Blaine and Ralston Hill in an Indianapolis dinner theater.

Sometimes they were not so bad. When they did "No Sex Please, We're British!" or other shit like that, they were to be avoided. As where the peas and peanuts floating in mayonnaise.

Wasn’t there a Burt Reynolds Dinner Theater in Florida someplace? Dom DeLuise and Nancy Kulp star in With Six You Get Egg Roll.

My parents took me to one near the airport in Raleigh, NC.

Even as a child, I knew it was cheesy. And I remember HATING Man of La Mancha.

Read the fucking thread, R24. Jesus H. Christ!

[quote]Have any of you east coasters ever gone to Tony and Tina's Wedding?

Pain in the ass show. On weekends, they would walk down Christopher Street, from the church to the restaurant, stopping traffic at 7th Avenue.

[quote]Who the hell was Ann Davis playing?

I assume it was the mutton.

I remember the glory hole days of dinner theater.

And mostly it was mutton posing as chicken.

It's funny to me that some people can't ascertain that this ad is fake. Is it that younger people today are don't know how absurd the notion of Jim Nabors playing King Arthur is?

I've been to a Drag Dinner Theater Cabaret in Los Angeles years ago which was awkward. In between courses the servers would lip sync to Gay Icons like Cher and Diana Ross. The jokes were awful. I didn't get it, really. It was the first time I ever saw a Drag queen. (I also learned that night, that you NEVER want to see a Drag Queen up close!!! Good lord. Whiskers protruding from the TEN layers of make-up, clumps of mascara glue, hair sticking out of the wigs! You could smell the alcohol on the server's breath. And they were too handsy. Always caressing me, when they approached the table. Sitting in my lap during the Singing. I was glad when it was over and I could get out of there.

I learned, after we had been dating for a few months, that my now-husband had a short lived career as a dinner theatre performer in the 90s. The Dutch Apple Dinner Theatre in Lancaster, PA. I was horrified, but the dick was good so I kept him.

Yes, we're still together. But whenever the words "Dutch apple" are ever spoken -- even on TV -- I just glare at him.

I've been to dinner theaters more than a few times, but I've never been to one that had performers that anyone had ever heard of. And this was in the LA area, where has-beens abound.

Too bad it’s a fake. I wanted to sea the tarpon cannery.

[quote]R12 I went to Chaffin's Barn in Nashville a few times. Mostly local talent. At that point, the Artistic Director was a flamboyant gay man. Usually two or three productions each year starred him mugging shamelessly.

OMG... this is every DLer’s [italic]dream![/italic]

“Welcome to the Once Around the Garden Dinner Theater’s annual production of MAME...”

Never been to a dinner theater. But when the Tent was still in Rhode Island the last act I saw there was Sam Kinison. Funny mother fucker too. Also saw Judy Tanuta back in the day too.

i like going to the New Theater and Restaurant in Overland Park, Kansas. I have seen Hairspray, Chicago and The Boyfriend. And good food. Don Knotts was always performing there back in the day.

God bless him, but Jim Nabors singing (and his mouth while singing) were unbearable to behold or listen to.

Does Medieval Times count?

Joyce DeWitt could have been a HUGE dinner theatre star.

Yet where is her Marian the Librarian? Her Phaedra?

Here in Birmingham we had the woefully misnamed Celebrity Dinner Theatre, which to my knowledge never had any actual celebrities performing.

Yes, a terrible experience. I mean really, Eugene O'Neill to the sound of plates and glasses clinking? Terrible food as well. Just awful.

Yes. 'The Alhambra Theater and Dining' in Jacksonville, Florida. It was third rate. They tried, but even the food was horrid.

r45 I've never been to a dinner theater where there was eating going on during the performance. Usually you eat first, then they serve coffee and dessert during intermission.

r43 Is that her Drowsy Chaperone?

I've gone to the Candlelight Pavilion in Claremont, CA many times. The food is basically institutional high-end airplane quality, but the performances are usually decent. (Although I hate that they use canned music.) They have also done some interesting staged readings of rarely-performed pieces. In the 2016 election year, they did "Mr. President," "Assassins," and "1776." (The staged readings didn't have dinner-- just coffee/drinks/dessert.)

Yes. It turned me on to steamed carrots.

No joke.

[quote]R48 Is that her Drowsy Chaperone?

Surely it’s her CARMEN (?)

R47, that was the case with the first diner theaters. Literally, the actors served the food and then went on stage to perform with clinking glasses, knives scratching across crockery, etc. going on. By the 80s, my experience was that the actors, for the most part, were no longer the waiters. They had high school kids do that. Dinner was served and eaten before the show. Dessert and coffee was still at intermission.

I don#t know if this is true, because I never experienced it, but I have had more than one actor tell me that diner theaters were popular in dry counties in the South Central states. Somehow they did not fall under the blue laws and could serve liquor.

Years ago when traveling to Puerto Rico, I went to a dinner dance theater.

A waitress came out and took our orders. A while later she delivered the drinks and meals. Then she took off her cape, turned on a tape recorder, and did a few traditional dances. Then she put her cape back on and handed everyone their dinner bills.

It was hilarious.

I was just thinking about the dinner theater in Jacksonville I went to a few times. The musical director in the 80s had a bit of a thing for me, so I got comped.

The funniest part was when they had the buffet tracked out with the chef riding on the platform as they announced your dinner.

The shows were fine.

Does that show at The Excalibur in Vegas count? 🤔

R36: You mush have gone to some obscure dinner theaters. If Ravenna Ohio could get John Davidson-level stars (he was king of this stuff), any place could.

I was at the Burt Reynolds Dinner Theater at least once in the early 80s. I can’t remember the show or who was in it. It was for the experience of being there, and there wasn’t a lot of options in the Treasure Coast area.

Twice. Gary Burghoff (Radar on M*A*S*H) starred in one. He did a Q&A after the show was over. Very personable.

I didn't just attend dinner theatre: I worked in one, in Hazelton, Pa.

We did Cabaret; I was the musical director. Very small orchestra. Some good talent--the Schulz later played Broadway as the heavy in Sweet Smell Of Success. The show's director was Doug Marland, later the most famous head writer in the soap opera world. The Emcee was a very sexy Irish boy; he also got to Broadway, in a western starring Elizabeth Ashley. Was it called Legend?

My parents drove in from far away to see it, and the staff were extra nice to them because of me. The orchestra players--really just some brass and a drummer (I was the pianist)--were local high schoolers, fun to work with, surprisingly good musicians and just happy to have the experience.

The Cliff had no sense of rhythm. On "Why Should I Wake Up?," he would start a phrase at any time; you never knew when. It was the only time I've encountered someone like that. How could he be in musicals?

I loved it, though. I was twenty-two, and everything's amusing when you're twenty-two.

Yakov Smirnoff used to have a dinner theater in Branson. It was so low budget they served dinner on magnetic trays that attached to your theater seat. Now the MAGAts just get popcorn at his shows, the chiseler.

Ive never been to one, but I remember my parents going. They saw Mitzi Gaynor in something...I dont remember what...it was late 60s, early 70s.

Dinner theater is so horrifically depressing to me. It's like seeing Shakespeare at a community college. I can't. I just can't.

Mitzi Gaynor was another who tuned up in everything from Equus to Gypsy.

I remember a loudmouth old local gay actor way back talking about appearing in a dinner theater production of something in St. Louis County. He was beside himself because the star was Guy Madison, with Marjorie Lord.

He said "Maggie" was great fun but the formerly delicious and available Mr. Madison by then was a crippled-up, wizened wreck. SUCH a disappointment for Tom.

The menu was surf-and-turf or chicken. I assume the former meant fried shrimp and a plop of sirloin.

Teatro Zinzanni in SF was pretty cool. Apparently re-opening in 2022.

And yeah, Medieval Times in Toronto back in the 90's. it was silly but fun.

Teatro Zinzanni in SF was pretty cool. Apparently re-opening in 2022.

And yeah, Medieval Times in Toronto back in the 90's. it was silly but fun.

Do they still exist? I just read that a well-known dinner theatre in the NY suburbs (Westchester Dinner Theatre, I think), which was a training ground for current Bway stars, has closed permanently.

R67, Training ground for NY stars is a bit of a misnomer if I recall. The theater existed for several years as an equity theater. I believe it closed and the re-opened e as a non-Equity theater.

Jacksonville's 'Alhambra Theater & Dining' is still up and running. They've just announced their 2021 schedule, in case you are interested. And local. And desperate.

There isn't much culture in Jacksonville. There is (surprisingly) the outstanding Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra, and the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens is wonderful. The Times-Union Center is a beautiful venue, but other than the Orchestra and questionable truck-and-bus tours, there isn't much there there.

So a dinner theater becomes, sadly, viable for the natives.

Dinner Theaters are an important cultural tool for many of America's mid-sized cities, because without a plate of food in the deal, most of the locals would never set foot in a the-ay-ter.

Chanhassen Dinner Theatre in Minnesota is still around, though obviously closed. They do old warhorses and cash cows, pretending to put a spin on them but not enough to stimulate thought. Most of the actors have been there decades, but the oldest they usually go is 50 or 60 for the young romantic leads and dancers. That said, the actors don’t serve the food andir is not from a buffet. A handful of famous and near famous got career boosts there: Amy Adans, Laiura Osnes.

One of the more bizarre attempts at dinner theater in San Francisco was the Kabuki, which was part of the horribly-named Japanese Cultural and Trade Center, an urban renewal project in the Western Addition, which opened in the late 1960s, which later became Japan Center.

Not much is written about this, so if anyone remembers it, I'd love to know more, but apparently it was a dinner theater that featured Japanese Kabuki (who knew there was a market for THAT?) but the restaurants in the complex didn't want the competition, so the theater served American and Chinese food, not Japanese.

Not surprisingly, it failed and, for a brief moment became a more traditional dinner theater (I saw KISS ME KATE there in the mid 1970s). The building then became a multiplex movie theater, showing foreign and independent films, under a variety of owners. I hope it survives the pandemic.

They should have gone for fusion--a Kabuki Kiss Me Kate.

I got a meat pie at “Sweeney Todd” and chili and cornbread at “Oklahoma!” Do they count?

"Cats" at a dinner theater. Probably better than the movie.

Went to one in the early 80s near New Hope PA. Remember nothing about it.

R67 and R68, the Westchester Broadway Theater was still operating as an Equity house.

Sweeny Todd at dinner theater amuses me greatly.

R78, r74 is referring to Broadway and off-Broadway productions. They served food as part of the experience, not as the business model. Sweeney actually has been done in a few dinner theaters, however...

I was consigned to Hell, playing Willy Loman night after night at a dinner theater in Florida.

Screw you Celeste Talbert.

I was assistant to the director for a dinner theater production of Irma la Douce in Philly. The main thing I remember is no serving until after the show was over, it began at 7pm, so we had a lot of really hungry pissed off people in the house.

These filthy rich people owned the place and invited us all to their house on the weekends for BBQ, prepared of course by their outdoor cook as opposed to their indoor cook. Their drunken priest used to make a pass at me and tried to pull me into the pool one time, I was not wearing a bathing suit, btw. This rich couple, probably late 60s or early 70s had a mirror on their bedroom ceiling and when I and some from the cast decided to look around their huge mansion while they were outside, drunk to the bone, found all kinds of sex toys in their bedroom. The toys had their own closet. I wondered if the priest came upstairs to play with them.

We were there for 3 weeks and I remember it was sort of fun but I was very young, 16, and I missed my father and my pets and didn't quite find the humor in the sex toys and mirror that the older people I was hanging out with found. Mostly I kept thinking rich fucks.

Oh BTW, I was also an assistant to this director for an off B'way show he did and non dinner theater theater is much better and more professional than dinner theater. I swear the audience thought it was going to be like eating while watching TV since they were mostly other old rich fucks and very low class ones. I'm sure if they were alive these days, this was in 1970, they'd have voted for Trump. This is not to be confused with Summer Stock which can be good. But basically dinner theater sucks.

BTW, the director was gay but didn't go after kids and treated me decently. It was always professional. However he was fucking the male lead of the Irma who was late 20s but they had been involved on and off long before he was cast in the play, but he was cast because of his relationship with the director. He was a good singer but a lousy actor and a very awkward dancer. So I didn't have much respect for the director.

(372) i've seen Kabuki when i lived in SF, before i went to Teatro. i was trying to remember the name but it wasn't coming to me when i posted my earlier response. Forgettable and the food was tolerable. the Saki flights were about the highlight of the evening.

Amy Adams got her start doing musical theater at the Chanhassen Dinner Theater in the Minneapolis suburbs.

I used to drive by a dinner theater in the South Bay area of LA county called "Seymour Hamm's", a name that was probably more entertaining than most of their productions.

Every year for our Speech and Drama end-of-the-school-year trip our teacher and another English teacher accompanying would take us to Circa 21 dinner playhouse in Rock Island Illinois. My senior year it was A Closer Walk with Patsy Cline. That one was amazing and one I still think about highly. In my Junior year, we saw some dopey thing called CowGirls but the dinner was great and the real show was Mrs. Christian all mad that our bus driver Peggy got to join us. "The Nerve" My sophomore year we saw some murder mystery and for some reason one of the actors kept harassing me for accusing him of being the killer. I hope he is dead!

Did you know there’s a dinner theater workers’ union? Members get pay rights and benefits.

[Quote] the Westchester Broadway Theater was still operating as an Equity house.

It’s not still operating

"Don't cry for me, Arte Johnson...."

More Buzz Buzz on Buzzi.....

I know, asshole R87, that's why I wrote "was" and attached the article about its closing.

Only once and I think it was with a church group as a kid. I saw FUNNY GIRL at , I think, the Pineville Dinner Theatre in Charlotte NC. Flash forward to a couple of years ago, I went to see MILK AND HONEY at the Muftis. I was talking to Alex Korey after the show and I have no idea how FG came up (maybe I mentioned NC) but guess who was Fanny? I have no memory of the production, the food etc. I had honestly forgotten about going. It was always advertised in the Charlotte Observer, I do remember that. I was researching something a couple of years ago which had me scrolling through the Charlotte Observer on microfilm and I saw an ad for a show with Bob Crane and of course I wondered if it was the same show he was doing when he was murdered? I didn’t realize that some of those summer stick productions like Tab Hunter in WSS had played Charlotte too. Saw ads for a Summer Broadway series at the “air conditioned “ Ovens Auditorium. I think those dated from the late 60s. Remember seeing (back to FG) Barbara Cook brought her Fanny Brice to Charlotte too!

I don’t think there were two dinner theaters in Charlotte although I could be wrong.

Hasn’t Jessica Lange talked about being stuck in some crap show in Charlotte at a dinner theatre after KING KING?

[quote]we saw some dopey thing called CowGirls

I saw Cowgirls Off-Broadway. It was ok for a small NYC show, but I never thought it should have a life after that.

I saw that other Phantom of the Opera (the non-ALW one) in a dinner theater. I think I had the salmon.

I've been to several of those 'mystery' dinners, where ham actors overact through the roof, then morph into Servers between acts.

R81 I bet the rich couple with the sex toys were younger than you remember.

When you are 16, people in their 50s seem close to death.