Dinner theater

Dinner theater is a fun way to enjoy both a meal and a show at the same time. It combines eating at a restaurant with watching a play or musical performance. Sometimes, the play is the main part of the evening, and the meal is just a small part of it. Other times, the meal is the main focus, and the play is just extra fun to watch.

In dinner theater, people can enjoy delicious food while sitting in a theater. This makes the evening special because they get to eat and watch a performance all in one place. It’s like going to a night club where there is also a restaurant.

Running a dinner theater is interesting because it needs three different things to work together: a live theater for the performance, a restaurant for the meal, and usually a bar for drinks. This makes it a unique and exciting kind of entertainment for everyone to enjoy.

History

The Madrigal dinners in the Renaissance were early forms of dinner theater. Some early dinner theaters, called "theatre restaurants," served dinner in one room and staged plays in another.

Notable venues in the United States

NarroWay Productions

NarroWay Productions is a non-profit Christian Dinner Theatre, founded by Yvonne Clark and Rebecca Martin in September 1996, located in Fort Mill, South Carolina. The theater started in the "King's Arena" amphitheater. After 8 years, they moved to an old gambling warehouse on Carowinds Blvd. Since then, they have created many new shows and added shops like a cafe, gift shop, and ice cream shop.

Barksdale Theatre

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. Later, an adjoining room was changed to serve dinner to groups attending performances.

Drury Lane Theatres

Tony DeSantis opened the Martinique Restaurant in Evergreen Park, Illinois and began producing plays in 1949 in a tent next to the restaurant. This led to building his first theater, Drury Lane Evergreen Park in 1958. He started six dinner theaters, with Drury Lane North beginning in 1976 and later becoming the Marriott Theatre. Drury Lane Oak Brook Terrace opened in 1984.

Meadowbrook Theatre Restaurant

Cedar Grove, New Jersey, was home to the Meadowbrook Theatre Restaurant, which opened in 1960 with over 700 seats. It closed after 13 years partly because of rules from the Actors' Equity Association.

Candlelight Theatre Restaurant

The first place where dinner and the show happened together in one room was the Candlelight Theatre Restaurant in Washington, D.C.. Bill Pullinsi started this in 1959 during summer breaks. Later, he opened the Candlelight Dinner Playhouse in Chicago.

Barn Dinner Theatres

Howard Douglass Wolfe created the Barn Dinner Theatre franchise in 1961. The chain included 27 theaters across several states. Each theater had a barn design with farm decorations and a special stage that could quickly change scenes. The Barn in Greensboro, North Carolina, founded in 1964, is the oldest continuously running dinner theater in America.

Chaffin's Barn

Chaffin's Barn in Nashville, Tennessee, opened in 1967 and was Nashville's first professional theater. It closed in October 2020 after 50 years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Alhambra Dinner Theatre

The Alhambra Dinner Theatre in Jacksonville, Florida opened in 1967 and was purchased in 1985. It remains the oldest dinner theater still open and uses a thrust stage so all 400 seats have a good view.

Chanhassen Dinner Theatres

Chanhassen Dinner Theatres in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area were founded in 1968 and claim to be the largest professional dinner theater in the U.S.

Carousel Dinner Theatre

The Carousel Dinner Theatre opened in 1973 and moved to Akron, Ohio in 1988. With 1200 seats, it was the largest dinner theater in the United States until it closed in 2009.

Beef & Boards Dinner Theatre

Beef & Boards Dinner Theatre in Indianapolis, Indiana, opened in 1973 and features Broadway shows and concerts with a buffet dinner.

Riddlesbrood Touring Theater

The Riddlesbrood Touring Theater Company stages dinner theater and comedy shows from Stratford, New Jersey.

Westchester Broadway Theatre

Westchester Broadway Theatre in Elmsford, NY presents Broadway Musical revivals and special events. It opened as An Evening Dinner Theatre in 1974 and moved to a larger space in 1991.

The Derby Dinner Playhouse

The Derby Dinner Playhouse in Clarksville, Indiana opened in 1974 and still operates. It uses a "magic stage" similar to the Barn Dinner Theatre.

Popularity and decline

Dinner theaters were very popular in the United States during the 1970s. In 1976, there were 147 of these special places where people could eat a meal and watch a play. Many famous movie and television stars performed in these theaters, making them exciting places to visit.

However, by the mid-1980s, many dinner theaters closed. The famous stars stopped performing there because they could earn more money more easily in other ways. By 1999, there were very few dinner theaters left.

Resurgence

After the year 2000, new dinner theaters started to open again. For example, a theater in Chicago called Drury Lane Water Tower Place reopened in 2004 after closing in 1983. Other new theaters also opened in places like Utah and Jacksonville.

The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 helped bring back dinner theaters as a way to give jobs to musicians and provide entertainment to people when many other places were closed.

Different types

See also: List of dinner theaters

In the United States, some dinner theaters are called equity theatres. These theaters employ actors who are members of a special group that helps protect their working conditions. Shows at these theaters often cost more because they must follow certain rules about pay and benefits.

Over time, many dinner theaters changed from this type to a different style to save money. While these theaters may still provide places to stay for actors, the pay for performers is often lower.

Some dinner theaters are run as businesses that aim to make a profit, while others are not-for-profit groups that receive support from grants and donations. Business dinner theaters often have shows many nights a week and short breaks between performances.

One example of a not-for-profit theater is the Starlight Dinner Theatre in Lansing, Michigan. Here, meals are prepared by a caterer, and shows happen in a school cafeteria. The season includes just four different productions, each shown four times on Friday and Saturday nights.

Some not-for-profit theaters use both professional and amateur actors in their shows.

Variations

Vacation spots in the United States like Las Vegas, Destin, Florida, Branson, Missouri, Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, Anaheim, and Los Angeles, California, have special dinner theaters. These shows stay the same for a long time because most of the people who visit are tourists, not local people. Orlando, Florida was very popular in 1999, with more than a dozen dinner theaters open.

One popular type of dinner theater is the murder mystery game. These are interactive shows where the audience can join in. Some shows are open to everyone, while others are for private groups like companies or clubs. In public shows, actors perform, but in private shows, guests can sometimes act as characters or helpers in the story.

Other types of dinner theaters include comedy weddings, where the audience interacts with actors. An example is Joey and Maria's Comedy Italian Wedding. There are also riverboat dinner cruises, which combine a boat ride with a meal and a show. These can only happen in places with water, like the Showboat Branson Belle or the Goldenrod Showboat.

Some dinner theaters are called madrigal dinners, and they happen mostly around Christmas. They often include singing, poetry, and costumes, and tell stories from long ago, like the Middle Ages or the Renaissance.

There is also Medieval Times Dinner and Tournament, where guests can watch horse shows and jousting while they eat.