{"id":2321,"date":"2011-03-18T03:30:24","date_gmt":"2011-03-18T07:30:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alcapones.com\/blog\/?p=2321"},"modified":"2018-04-05T11:51:26","modified_gmt":"2018-04-05T15:51:26","slug":"the-history-of-dinner-theatre-%e2%80%93-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alcapones.com\/blog\/the-history-of-dinner-theatre-%e2%80%93-part-2-2321","title":{"rendered":"The History of Dinner Theatre \u2013 Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

As I mentioned in Part 1<\/a>, the 1970s were the heyday of dinner theaters, and in 1976, there were 147 professional dinner theaters<\/strong> in operation.\u00a0 It was very popular back then to use former movie stars in these productions.\u00a0 A few stars who found success in dinner theatre are JoAnne Worley, Shelley Berman, Jane Russell, Van Johnson, and Lana Turner.\u00a0 A few stars even owned their own dinner theaters, such as Burt Reynolds and Earl Holliman.<\/p>\n

The dinner theater boom declined towards the mid-1980s, with many of the theaters closing down.\u00a0 The aging stars started receiving offers for work in television and commercials, and so they stopped performing in dinner theater.\u00a0 With TV or commercials, they were making more money. Show costs and food costs are the largest cost areas, and the main reasons for the drop in the popularity of Dinner Shows and Dinner Theaters. \u00a0The reduction in professional dinner theaters went from 147 in 1976 to 9<\/strong> in 1999.<\/p>\n

Purchase Half Price Dinner Show Tickets!<\/a><\/p>\n

However, since that time, vacation destinations such as Las Vegas, Nevada; Florida; Branson, Missouri; Anaheim, and Los Angeles have seen the emergence of specialty dinner theatres, where the show stays the same for an extended run because the vast majority of their customers are tourists, not local residents.<\/p>\n

Orlando, Florida<\/strong>, the most popular vacation destination in the United States, had more than a dozen competing for a share of the $17.3 Billion that tourists spent in 1999. Through the 1990s, sixteen Dinner Theaters opened and closed here.\u00a0 The Orlando area has still managed to keep several entertaining dinner shows, including Capone’s Diner & Show<\/a><\/strong>; visit our dinner show directory<\/strong><\/a> for more information.\u00a0 Most of the professional theaters still exist because they put on a great show, with a lot of audience participation.\u00a0 Some of these specialty theaters include themes such as murder mystery, pirates, equestrian shows, and gangsters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 1970s were the heyday of dinner theaters, and in 1976, there were 147 professional dinner theaters in operation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":359,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[256,449],"tags":[628,13,251,152],"class_list":["post-2321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment","category-orlando-shows-theatre","tag-dinner-theater","tag-orlando-dinner-shows","tag-orlando-dinner-theater","tag-orlando-dinner-theatre"],"yoast_head":"\nThe History of Dinner Theatre \u2013 Part 2 - Al's Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/alcapones.com\/blog\/the-history-of-dinner-theatre-\u2013-part-2-2321\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The History of Dinner Theatre \u2013 Part 2 - 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