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Good Food, Good Shows: America's Dinner Theaters |
| Section: CULTURE / PEOPLES |
| Author: Eloise Paananen |
| Publication:
The World & I Online |
| Issue Date: 12/1/1992 |
| Size: 2,504 Words, 15,169 Characters |
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There was a time when Americans wanting a night out would go to a restaurant for dinner, then travel across town for a show, a time-consuming, costly way to enjoy live theater. Often, the commute from jobs downtown to suburbia to freshen up, change clothes, and then to drive more miles through traffic discouraged even the most ardent theatergoers. That has all changed now, with posh dinner theaters popping up in shopping malls and other easily accessible places. Usually, parking is free, and hubcaps likely will be in place after the show.
Dinner theater used to be referred to as the paradigm of middlebrow entertainment for middle-aged suburbanites, but this is no longer so. True, the cost of an evening at some of the dozen dinner theaters in the Baltimore-Washington area averages a mere thirty-six dollars per person for one drink, a meal, and the show. All establishments except the West End Theatre in Alexandria, Virginia, and Fells Point in Annapolis, Maryland, serve brunch and dinner buffet style. Any wait usually is short, and drinks often are served by cast members. The buffets are well stocked and clean, with several salads, a few hot vegetables, four or five entrees, and three or four desserts. About twenty to thirty minutes before curtain time, servers take drink orders for intermission. Usually, settling up for the tip and for drinks, not included in the base price, is done during intermission.
It's okay to come alone. Tables may seat six, eight, or even ten people, and...
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...ks more than sixteen hundred groups at the Carousel: about seventy thousand individuals from church groups, schools, organizations, corporations, and various tours. "Networking is essential," she says. "We depend on other facilities, just as they depend on us. I work with people all over the country. The tour operators provide us with guests, and we entertain them with the magic of Broadway."
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Publication Details
(The World & I Online) |
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The World & I Online is a
comprehensive academic resource that encompasses a broad range of
articles by scholars and experts in the areas of Global Studies,
Liberal Arts, Fine & Applied Arts, General Science, and Spanish.
Originally published monthly in print as The World & I, our site
includes the complete contents since 1986 and continues to publish
a new issue online each month. |
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