Dinner theater
[3] Narroway Productions [4] is a Christian Dinner Theatre, founded by Yvonne Clark and Rebecca Martin in September 1996, located in Fort Mill, South Carolina.
Barksdale Theatre in Richmond, Virginia, founded in 1953 by David and Nancy Kilgore at the Hanover Tavern, was the first formal dinner theater in the United States.
[9] Cedar Grove, New Jersey, was the location of the Meadowbrook Theatre Restaurant, which opened in 1960 with 700+ seats of table service.
[3] The first facility where dinner and the show were together in one room was the Candlelight Theatre Restaurant in Washington, D.C. Bill Pullinsi was a theater student in 1959 who conceived and implemented the entertainment concept at the Presidential Arms Hotel during summer breaks.
Pullinsi returned to his Chicago home and opened the Candlelight Dinner Playhouse, first in a building owned by his grandfather, then in a new facility with seating for 550.
[13] The chain included 27 theaters in New York, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Louisiana, and Georgia.
[17] Known as a place where many actors landed their first paid professional "gigs", The Barn was forced to close in October 2020, after 50 years of business due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Some believe the theater was a victim of the late 2000s US economic crisis,[25] however it was more likely the change in ownership and poor decisions on their part that triggered events leading to the theatre closing.
Based in Stratford, New Jersey, some of their shows have been performed entirely in made-up languages and have incorporated ideas from the New Thought movement.
In 1991, the theatre moved to a larger performance space with state-of-the-art technology, hydraulic lifts, increased seating capacity, and many other features.
Van Johnson, Lana Turner, Don Ameche, Eve Arden, Mickey Rooney, June Allyson, Shelley Winters, Dorothy Lamour, Tab Hunter, Betty Grable, Sandra Dee, Mamie Van Doren, Joan Blondell, Debbie Reynolds, Cyd Charisse, Kathryn Grayson, Betty Hutton, Jane Withers, Martha Raye, Elke Sommer, Donald O'Connor, Roddy McDowall, Jane Russell, Cesar Romero, and Ann Miller are just a few Hollywood stars who were featured in dinner theatre.
Actors from well remembered television series, such as Betty White, Ann B. Davis, Vivian Vance, Bob Denver, Jo Anne Worley, Bernie Kopell, Dawn Wells, Ken Berry, Gavin MacLeod, Nancy Kulp, Frank Sutton, and Bob Crane[32] were also used as headliners.
[31] There was a stigma attached to dinner theater and audiences got tired of such shows like The Last of the Red Hot Lovers and Arsenic and Old Lace.
Union shows have a higher cost because equity contracts typically require the theater to pay for lodging, a minimum salary, insurance and pension payments, among other work rules regarding auditions and hiring.
[citation needed] Tony DeSantis commented that theater operations break even at best, while the restaurant and especially the bar, are more likely to be profitable.
[citation needed] Vacation American destinations such as Las Vegas, Destin, Florida, Branson, Missouri, Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, Anaheim, and Los Angeles, California, saw the emergence of specialty dinner theaters, where the show stays the same for an extended run because the vast majority of their customers are tourists, not local residents.
The most popular vacation destination in the United States, Orlando, Florida, had more than a dozen dinner theaters operating in 1999; through the 1990s, sixteen opened and closed there.
The productions may be public where anyone can attend for the price of admission, or private where a company, social group or organization sponsors an event for its members.
Public performances usually feature professional actors while private showings may offer "roles" to the guests who participate in the production as either characters or detectives.
[citation needed] The Wedding Comedy is similar to Murder Mystery as the staging requirements are minimal and the audience has interaction with the actors while they perform.
Joey and Maria's Comedy Italian Wedding was written by Darlyne Franklin in 1992 and the franchise rights were sold in 2001.
They are often staged by educational or religious entities for fundraising and include food, singing, poetry, humor, costumes, and a play from the Middle Ages, ranging from medieval to the Renaissance periods.
