Looking back at successful history of Naples Dinner Theatre
It’s almost time to close the curtain on another piece of Naples history
By Laura Layden
Originally published — 3:45 p.m., April 21, 2007
Updated — 11:43 p.m., April 21, 2007
Pet rocks were all the rage, the world saw the first joint space mission between the U.S. and Russia, and the record of the year was “I Honestly Love You,” by Olivia Newton-John.
It was 1975 and it became a year to remember in Southwest Florida, when Julius Fiske, a retired New York businessman, and other investors opened the Naples Dinner Theatre on Oct. 7 with the episodic saga of “George M.”
When the theater off Immokalee Road closes its curtain after a final performance Sunday night, Naples will lose another bit of its history.
“It’s sad to see. But I guess that’s just part of progress,” said Collier County Commissioner Frank Halas, whose district has been home to the theater for more than three decades.
The dinner theater joins a long list of other landmarks that Naples has lost in recent years. Among them: the Chickee bar at Vanderbilt Inn, Witch’s Brew restaurant and the Naples Drive-In movie theater.
The losses frustrate East Naples resident Jeanne Letizia.
“Pretty soon we’ll be locked in our condos with no place to go,” she said, with a sigh.
The 32-year-old theater survived hurricanes, but it couldn’t stop the march of development. It soon will be torn down to make way for storage buildings. The land underneath it was sold last year by the Fiske family trust.
“I thought we had plenty of storage units,” Letizia said. “They’re like banks, on every corner.
“Naples is just kind of disappearing into cement,” she said.
It’s not that she went to the dinner theater all the time. But when she did, she had fun.
Through the years, the theater has brought laughter and tears. It has moved souls and filled hearts with its performances. The theater offered good old-fashioned entertainment. Every show didn’t bring rave reviews from local theater critics. But many did.
Often, performances brought a standing ovation.
The theater will go out like it came in, with a sold-out performance.
It offered everything from comedies, such as “Once Upon a Mattress,” to musical dramas, including “Chicago.”
At times, it even scared audiences. In February 1979, “Wait Until Dark,” a tense thriller, had theater-goers biting their nails.
“It’s definitely a loss for the community because it did fill a need in the community,” said Elaine Hamilton, executive director of the United Arts Council in Collier County. “Fortunately, we do have a lot of other options for live theater in Collier County. Hopefully those organizations will be able to step up to the plate, at least provide the theater aspect, not necessarily the dinner with it.”
The dinner theater was built to seat 349 people.
The early days
When it opened, there were no other theaters in town and no other businesses in North Naples. It was surrounded by strawberry, tomato and watermelon farms.
Sandra Fiske, Julius’ daughter, recalls those days.
“Back in 1975, there was no North Naples,” she said. “...Immokalee Road was virtually deserted, and when my father first opened the theater there were many people who thought he was a little off his rocker, wondering: ‘What are you doing out there in the middle of the woods?’”
In those days, the closest theaters were in Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale and Sarasota.
Julius Fiske retired to Naples in 1972 after 35 years in the publishing and printing business. He organized, owned and served as president and board chairman for Fenway Press Inc., Fiske Associates, Fenway Merchandising Inc. and Sanrick Premium Corp., all in New York City.
After giving all that up, he had a hard time slowing down.
“My father was an exceedingly good businessman,” Sandra Fiske said. “He retired at a very early age. He said he would last six months. He didn’t last two. He was not a person that could sit still.”
It seems he was a natural businessman. Growing up, he sold newspapers and magazines and shoveled snow to make money.
The dinner theater started off with a bang.
On the first night, theater-goers ate from the huge buffet before the opening curtain at 8:15 p.m. At the end of the performance, the stage became a dance floor.
At the time, Daily News reporter Tony Weitzel had good things to say about that night. He wrote that director Robert Ennis Turoff had “done a masterful job of putting this crowded production together on the beautifully engineered dinner theater stage.”
“Live theater, in recent years has migrated from the concrete canyons of our cities to the suburbs ... and the Naples Dinner Theatre brings a first rate dinner theater operation to the southern tip of the Gulf Coast,” he wrote.
The Naples Dinner Theatre was created to show only Broadway productions. It came with a promise to offer “top-grade family-type shows,” and “no weird productions, nudity or bad-taste dialogue” would be allowed.
Early on, Fiske and other investors formed Naples Dinner Theatre Associates Ltd. and issued 20 shares valued at $32,000 each. Fiske’s own investment amounted to more than $200,000, according to a Daily News story by Jerry Drake, business editor at the time.
By the time it opened, the investors had put nearly $1 million into the theater.
Initially, 40 employees worked at the theater. Sixteen actors were brought in for the six-week run of George M. In its final days, the theater employed 80 people and had a payroll of more than $1.5 million.
In the early days, theater-goers paid $11.50 for matinees and $12.50 for night performances, except on Friday and Saturday, when the ticket cost increased to $14.
For its final performances, the theater charged $43.50 for matinees and $49.50 for evening shows.
Early on, audiences criticized the food. But that changed quickly with the hiring of French chef Michel F. Malecot, who brought gourmet to the buffet. He received his cooking degree from a chef’s school in France.
Daily News reporter Frank Pettengill wrote that the chef was “a gem that they should avoid losing.”
Sandra Fiske remembers the theater having two French chefs while run by her father, and both of them had long stints at the venue.
Originally, the theater’s shows were designed in Sarasota. By the third season, they were produced in Naples, under the supervision of Jim Fargo, who came from the Beef ‘n’ Board Dinner Theater chain in Kentucky and Ohio. That season opened with the musical comedy “Irma La Douce.”
Before the third season got under way, the theater also added a new gallery level of seating, to allow better views of productions. Other improvements included 26 new paintings of famous actors and actresses in American theater.
The theater initially spanned 13,000 square feet, but expanded several times through the years.
In 1983, Fiske tried to convert his theater into a planned development to offer more flexible zoning. He hoped to add sleeping quarters, a liquor store, bakery and other enterprises.
He needed a super majority vote, or at least a 4-1 vote, from county commissioners. He didn’t get it.
In 1989, Fiske added new slick entertainment, including “oil wrestling” and “foxy boxing,” both involving, you guessed it, pretty women.
“It’s family entertainment but it will be a heck of a lot of laughs,” he said at the time.
It was meant for people who didn’t want to see another production of “Hello Dolly” or “Camelot.”
Fiske ran the theater until he became too sick to do it anymore. He closed it in 1997 and died two years later.
After surviving two open heart surgeries, he was diagnosed with lung cancer, said Sandra Fiske, who lives in the Panhandle.
“He poured his heart and soul into (the theater),” she said. “It employed a lot of people in the early days, when there weren’t a lot of employment opportunities down there.”
The theater sat idle for two years, until it was taken over by Stuart Glazer, Barry Marcus and Michael Wainstein. They leased the building from the Fiske family in 1999.
Glazer and Marcus are former teachers. Wainstein is former artistic director for Sugden Community Theatre’s troupe in Naples. Marcus is also an actor, who has performed in many of the dinner theater’s productions.
It was Wainstein who noticed the empty theater while driving down Immokalee Road one day and called up Marcus, who was part of the group that brought him from Boston to Naples to work at Sugden.
They put on their first show, “Forever Plaid,” on Dec. 17, 1999. Since then, they’ve done 86 others.
They in part blame the Daily News for the theater’s closing, for stopping its theater reviews and focusing more on production previews.
Calls were placed to them seeking comment for this story to no avail.
They made many improvements to the theater, including installing a revolving stage to accommodate more sets and performances.
They’ve put on shows as diverse as “Chicago” and “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”
In a review of “Guys & Dolls” in March 2000, Daily News reporter Jeff Clemens wrote: “The dinner theater has succeeded in attracting quality talent from top-to-bottom to Naples ...The fact that it can put on a large show without a glaring cast weakness speaks volumes about its ability to survive and thrive in Southwest Florida.”
Later that season, when the theater staged “Rocky Horror” for the first time, Clemens said it “made for some of the most refreshing entertainment Collier County has ever seen and the full house was proof that this kind of work can not only survive here, it can flourish.”
With the new operators also came the Ice Cream Theatre, offering morning and early afternoon performances that catered to kids and families. The series has included such shows as “Rapunzel,” “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown,” and “Babes in Toyland.”
At every performance, there was a make-your-own ice cream sundae bar. Hot dogs, hamburgers and pizza also were served. Wainstein, the theater’s artistic director, thought up the idea. While they’ve had artistic success, the partners have struggled financially.
They passed up opportunities to buy the building.
Sandra Fiske said there was no one in the family that could have taken the theater over and run it like her parents. So the decision was made to sell the property.
“It’s the end of an era,” she said. “But life goes on.”
naplesnews.com
Theater groups still in play from Naples to Estero
Closing of Naples Dinner Theatre leaves entertainment void that other companies will try to fill
By Harriet Howard Heithaus
Originally published — 3:59 p.m., April 21, 2007
Updated — 11:36 p.m., April 21, 2007
When the last curtain drops on “Show Boat” at Naples Dinner Theatre on Sunday night, local culture also will lose its Shakespearean motto to offer theater “As You Like It.”
There still are three theater companies that call Naples home and one stage, the Philharmonic Center for the Arts, that presents occasional touring productions, but none offers the triple threat of a meal, entertainment and a $50 price tag that characterized the dinner theater on Immokalee Road in North Naples.
Nor do the other companies see themselves as heavily invested in big-name musicals, which constituted more than three-quarters of the Naples Dinner Theatre repertoire.
From the shoestring Pelican Players to the Naples Players, with its Fifth Avenue South, two-stage home, each of them is courting a market that reaches extremities, but not the heart of a dinner-theater mission: family-friendly, upbeat musical productions that provide a single-location evening with on-site dining.
Still, several local companies are trying to take up the challenge of toque and theater.
Jim Rideoutte, executive director of Naples Players, is talking with several restaurants about the idea of offering a package — dinner and a play ticket — that would allow people to walk about a block to the theater. Nothing is set yet.
“I’d like to give it to one or two restaurants and give them (ticket buyers) a choice, and it’s going to have to be a reasonable price. If the price is going to be beyond a moderate price, we won’t do it.”
Currently, Naples Players tickets alone are $30, or $35 for musicals.
The 53-year-old amateur organization is the dinner theater’s closest relative, sharing some patrons and even amateur actors, who occasionally appeared in Naples Dinner Theatre’s salaried productions. Only the administrative staff of Naples Players is paid, however.
“What you got there for your dollar was a good deal,” Rideoutte said of the dinner theater. “You got a good meal. It wasn’t a gourmet meal, but they never represented it as such. You got a good show. They had four musicians in the pit for the musicals.”
Both appeal to general audiences with fare such as “Mame” and “Music Man,” although Naples Players has the Tobye Studio, a “black box” for deeper works such as “The Laramie Project” and “How I Learned to Drive.” It occasionally schedules drama in its 350-seat Blackburn Hall. One such play, in 2004, was “Art,” an acerbic three-character debate over the artistic merits of an expensive white canvas.
“Every once in a while we’re going to put on something that’s going to make you think, whether you want to or not,” Rideoutte quipped.
Naples Players even offers free valet parking at a Fourth Avenue South drive behind its home at the Sugden Community Theatre, an approximation of the dropoff portico at the Naples Dinner Theatre building.
But, Rideoutte said, “I don’t want to get into the restaurant business.”
TheatreZone, which calls the 250-seat G-and-L Theatre at Community School off Livingston Road its home, is also talking with the nearby Encore restaurant for a $50 dinner-performance package for its summer music revue, “Back to Bachrach and David.” Tickets alone are $35.
The TheatreZone mission is musical, but less familiar, fare than that of the Naples Dinner Theatre and Naples Players.
Founding Director Mark Danni said he has a taste for “musicals that should be performed more often but aren’t” — small-cast gems such as “Baby,” a musical contrasting three expectant couples, and the European pop-rock hit, “Chess.” Both were part of the TheatreZone’s opening 2006-07 season. Coming up is another work that doesn’t make the rounds often — the generation-defining 1970s rock musical “Hair.”
“We also want to be a launching ground for premieres, which we did with ‘Miracle in Rwanda,’” Danni said.
He is the Community School of Naples director of performing arts and the theater program supervisor. He came here with the understanding he could develop an Equity theater-in-residence.
Only the cramped backstage and school functions, which limit play runs, hamper TheatreZone, he said. Danni’s worry, ironically, is that a larger performing arts space the school has on the drawing board will compromise one of its current strengths.
“We’re hearing from the audience how much they like the intimacy,” he said of the G&L Theatre, where the terraced seats wrap around the front of the curved stage. He’s delighted with the audience reception of their fare: “Some of the audience thought ‘Chess’ was a touring production. It was that professional.”
Pelican Players considers Norris Center in Naples its home. Its community-centric amateur theater has been there since 1989 when the center’s previous version, a boxy park building, stood at Eighth Avenue and Eighth Street South.
The company is in rehearsal for its May 5 opening of “Opal’s Million-Dollar Duck,” about a junk-store dealer who inadvertently picks up a major artwork for a birthday gift, confounding art lovers who want to buy it from her.
Much of what Pelican Players do is comedy; it’s selected by founder John Lanham, a Social Security professional whose evenings are often devoted to scouting out first- and second-choice material. The latter comes into play if they can’t find a cast for their first choices. In fact, “Opal” is replacing “Impolite Comedy” for that reason.
“I’m like the football coach,” Lanham joked. “I’ve always got a B list of plays in my back pocket.”
Pelican Players is dedicated to giving newcomers a chance. As the company’s casual Web site points out, “Remember, Noah was an amateur when he built the ark. Professionals built the Titanic.”
With $18 tickets — those who sign up for the mailing list get a $3 discount — and audiences who are willing to take a risk, Pelican Players will celebrate its 20th year in 2008 with a season of shows that includes the one it never got to the stage: “Who’s on First.”
Hurricane Charley closed down the Norris Center on its opening weekend in 2004.
The Norris Center apparently isn’t big enough for two companies, however.
Stage 88, an outgrowth of the defunct Actors Repertory Theatre here, even took its name from the Eighth Street-Eighth Avenue South location, but moved last year to Bonita Springs.
“Naples is a tough place for theaters to sprout because there’s never been a lot of support for the new and different,” artistic/technical director Mark McClellan observed. “That’s not a knock on Naples. That’s just the way it is.
“When we came to Bonita Springs, the floodgates opened. The city of Bonita Springs has really embraced us. For our first production, we told ourselves we’d be lucky if we sold 40 tickets. We’ve actually sold out performances for our first two shows.”
Stage 88’s eclectic season included a musical McClellan wrote, “Four-Part Thunder,” as well as its current production through May 5, “The Conner Girls,” a probing look at family relationships. Stage 88 looks for the new and underappreciated.
Its ticket prices are $15 for plays, $25 for musicals, which McClellan gives as an example of their niche: “We have done shows like ‘Pump Boys and Dinettes,’ which a lot of community theaters don’t do because all the actors on the stage have to play in the band, too.”
McClellan calls Stage 88 a work-ethic company: “A lot of theater groups sprout up and come at you with an architectural drawing in one hand and the other in your back pocket. Our focus is on working. We’re in a much better position in three seasons to start asking about grants.
“I’m a Midwesterner. I have the Midwestern work ethic. Most of the people who are with us have the work ethic. We’re doers, not dreamers.”
Yet he has a vision: “We’d love, down the road, to be an anchor in Bonita Springs.”
Two gypsy companies playing in Naples are still looking for homes. Steven Ditmyer is the artistic director of the Neighborhood Theatre Company, which is only now returning with an encore presentation of “The Syringa Tree,” its 2004 hit.
The company has the Sugden Community Theatre for three performances of “The Syringa Tree” May 1, 7 and 8. Its last three performances were in the Naples Park Area Association Building, 654 104th Ave. N., including a production of “Art” an a trio of bittersweet one-acts.
“People don’t know how tough it was to do that,” he recalled of the season.
Because the building was home to classes and other events, the company sometimes had to tear down its sets several times a day. Property and construction prices are a major roadblock here, he said.
Still, he sees Naples as the place to put down roots for its thought-provoking, small-theater plays.
“It’s coming into its own,” he said. “The next 10 years there’s going to be a lot of growth happening in Naples. I don’t just mean people coming down. There’s a lot of growth in the arts that’s going to happen here, too.”
Gulfshore Playhouse already has property in Estero at U.S. 41 and Corkscrew Road on the edge of a development.
Kristen Coury, founder and producing artistic director, also has plans: a regional 550-seat theater with a six-show season in a 40,000-square-foot facility.
It doesn’t see itself as a musical theater; that’s turf well covered by the touring companies at the Philharmonic Center for the Arts in Naples and the Barbara B. Mann Performing Arts Hall in Fort Myers, Coury said. Its oeuvre, she said, is creative, professional theater at affordable prices.
Currently, Gulfshore is a playhouse in title only. It just closed three performances of “Romeo and Juliet Redefined,” a look at various forms the star-crossed lovers have come back in, on the open-air stage of Cambier Park in Naples.
“We won’t get another space until October,” Coury lamented.
She, like Ditmyer, sees a cultural opening here, but it isn’t for dinner theater.
“When push came to shove and there was a niche to fill, there was something between the presenting house (which handles touring company productions) and the producing theater, something in the vein of the Cleveland (Ohio) Playhouse missing here.”
© 2007 Naples Daily News and NDN Productions. Published in Naples, Florida, USA by the E.W. Scripps Co.
It’s almost time to close the curtain on another piece of Naples history
By Laura Layden
Originally published — 3:45 p.m., April 21, 2007
Updated — 11:43 p.m., April 21, 2007
Pet rocks were all the rage, the world saw the first joint space mission between the U.S. and Russia, and the record of the year was “I Honestly Love You,” by Olivia Newton-John.
It was 1975 and it became a year to remember in Southwest Florida, when Julius Fiske, a retired New York businessman, and other investors opened the Naples Dinner Theatre on Oct. 7 with the episodic saga of “George M.”
When the theater off Immokalee Road closes its curtain after a final performance Sunday night, Naples will lose another bit of its history.
“It’s sad to see. But I guess that’s just part of progress,” said Collier County Commissioner Frank Halas, whose district has been home to the theater for more than three decades.
The dinner theater joins a long list of other landmarks that Naples has lost in recent years. Among them: the Chickee bar at Vanderbilt Inn, Witch’s Brew restaurant and the Naples Drive-In movie theater.
The losses frustrate East Naples resident Jeanne Letizia.
“Pretty soon we’ll be locked in our condos with no place to go,” she said, with a sigh.
The 32-year-old theater survived hurricanes, but it couldn’t stop the march of development. It soon will be torn down to make way for storage buildings. The land underneath it was sold last year by the Fiske family trust.
“I thought we had plenty of storage units,” Letizia said. “They’re like banks, on every corner.
“Naples is just kind of disappearing into cement,” she said.
It’s not that she went to the dinner theater all the time. But when she did, she had fun.
Through the years, the theater has brought laughter and tears. It has moved souls and filled hearts with its performances. The theater offered good old-fashioned entertainment. Every show didn’t bring rave reviews from local theater critics. But many did.
Often, performances brought a standing ovation.
The theater will go out like it came in, with a sold-out performance.
It offered everything from comedies, such as “Once Upon a Mattress,” to musical dramas, including “Chicago.”
At times, it even scared audiences. In February 1979, “Wait Until Dark,” a tense thriller, had theater-goers biting their nails.
“It’s definitely a loss for the community because it did fill a need in the community,” said Elaine Hamilton, executive director of the United Arts Council in Collier County. “Fortunately, we do have a lot of other options for live theater in Collier County. Hopefully those organizations will be able to step up to the plate, at least provide the theater aspect, not necessarily the dinner with it.”
The dinner theater was built to seat 349 people.
The early days
When it opened, there were no other theaters in town and no other businesses in North Naples. It was surrounded by strawberry, tomato and watermelon farms.
Sandra Fiske, Julius’ daughter, recalls those days.
“Back in 1975, there was no North Naples,” she said. “...Immokalee Road was virtually deserted, and when my father first opened the theater there were many people who thought he was a little off his rocker, wondering: ‘What are you doing out there in the middle of the woods?’”
In those days, the closest theaters were in Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale and Sarasota.
Julius Fiske retired to Naples in 1972 after 35 years in the publishing and printing business. He organized, owned and served as president and board chairman for Fenway Press Inc., Fiske Associates, Fenway Merchandising Inc. and Sanrick Premium Corp., all in New York City.
After giving all that up, he had a hard time slowing down.
“My father was an exceedingly good businessman,” Sandra Fiske said. “He retired at a very early age. He said he would last six months. He didn’t last two. He was not a person that could sit still.”
It seems he was a natural businessman. Growing up, he sold newspapers and magazines and shoveled snow to make money.
The dinner theater started off with a bang.
On the first night, theater-goers ate from the huge buffet before the opening curtain at 8:15 p.m. At the end of the performance, the stage became a dance floor.
At the time, Daily News reporter Tony Weitzel had good things to say about that night. He wrote that director Robert Ennis Turoff had “done a masterful job of putting this crowded production together on the beautifully engineered dinner theater stage.”
“Live theater, in recent years has migrated from the concrete canyons of our cities to the suburbs ... and the Naples Dinner Theatre brings a first rate dinner theater operation to the southern tip of the Gulf Coast,” he wrote.
The Naples Dinner Theatre was created to show only Broadway productions. It came with a promise to offer “top-grade family-type shows,” and “no weird productions, nudity or bad-taste dialogue” would be allowed.
Early on, Fiske and other investors formed Naples Dinner Theatre Associates Ltd. and issued 20 shares valued at $32,000 each. Fiske’s own investment amounted to more than $200,000, according to a Daily News story by Jerry Drake, business editor at the time.
By the time it opened, the investors had put nearly $1 million into the theater.
Initially, 40 employees worked at the theater. Sixteen actors were brought in for the six-week run of George M. In its final days, the theater employed 80 people and had a payroll of more than $1.5 million.
In the early days, theater-goers paid $11.50 for matinees and $12.50 for night performances, except on Friday and Saturday, when the ticket cost increased to $14.
For its final performances, the theater charged $43.50 for matinees and $49.50 for evening shows.
Early on, audiences criticized the food. But that changed quickly with the hiring of French chef Michel F. Malecot, who brought gourmet to the buffet. He received his cooking degree from a chef’s school in France.
Daily News reporter Frank Pettengill wrote that the chef was “a gem that they should avoid losing.”
Sandra Fiske remembers the theater having two French chefs while run by her father, and both of them had long stints at the venue.
Originally, the theater’s shows were designed in Sarasota. By the third season, they were produced in Naples, under the supervision of Jim Fargo, who came from the Beef ‘n’ Board Dinner Theater chain in Kentucky and Ohio. That season opened with the musical comedy “Irma La Douce.”
Before the third season got under way, the theater also added a new gallery level of seating, to allow better views of productions. Other improvements included 26 new paintings of famous actors and actresses in American theater.
The theater initially spanned 13,000 square feet, but expanded several times through the years.
In 1983, Fiske tried to convert his theater into a planned development to offer more flexible zoning. He hoped to add sleeping quarters, a liquor store, bakery and other enterprises.
He needed a super majority vote, or at least a 4-1 vote, from county commissioners. He didn’t get it.
In 1989, Fiske added new slick entertainment, including “oil wrestling” and “foxy boxing,” both involving, you guessed it, pretty women.
“It’s family entertainment but it will be a heck of a lot of laughs,” he said at the time.
It was meant for people who didn’t want to see another production of “Hello Dolly” or “Camelot.”
Fiske ran the theater until he became too sick to do it anymore. He closed it in 1997 and died two years later.
After surviving two open heart surgeries, he was diagnosed with lung cancer, said Sandra Fiske, who lives in the Panhandle.
“He poured his heart and soul into (the theater),” she said. “It employed a lot of people in the early days, when there weren’t a lot of employment opportunities down there.”
The theater sat idle for two years, until it was taken over by Stuart Glazer, Barry Marcus and Michael Wainstein. They leased the building from the Fiske family in 1999.
Glazer and Marcus are former teachers. Wainstein is former artistic director for Sugden Community Theatre’s troupe in Naples. Marcus is also an actor, who has performed in many of the dinner theater’s productions.
It was Wainstein who noticed the empty theater while driving down Immokalee Road one day and called up Marcus, who was part of the group that brought him from Boston to Naples to work at Sugden.
They put on their first show, “Forever Plaid,” on Dec. 17, 1999. Since then, they’ve done 86 others.
They in part blame the Daily News for the theater’s closing, for stopping its theater reviews and focusing more on production previews.
Calls were placed to them seeking comment for this story to no avail.
They made many improvements to the theater, including installing a revolving stage to accommodate more sets and performances.
They’ve put on shows as diverse as “Chicago” and “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”
In a review of “Guys & Dolls” in March 2000, Daily News reporter Jeff Clemens wrote: “The dinner theater has succeeded in attracting quality talent from top-to-bottom to Naples ...The fact that it can put on a large show without a glaring cast weakness speaks volumes about its ability to survive and thrive in Southwest Florida.”
Later that season, when the theater staged “Rocky Horror” for the first time, Clemens said it “made for some of the most refreshing entertainment Collier County has ever seen and the full house was proof that this kind of work can not only survive here, it can flourish.”
With the new operators also came the Ice Cream Theatre, offering morning and early afternoon performances that catered to kids and families. The series has included such shows as “Rapunzel,” “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown,” and “Babes in Toyland.”
At every performance, there was a make-your-own ice cream sundae bar. Hot dogs, hamburgers and pizza also were served. Wainstein, the theater’s artistic director, thought up the idea. While they’ve had artistic success, the partners have struggled financially.
They passed up opportunities to buy the building.
Sandra Fiske said there was no one in the family that could have taken the theater over and run it like her parents. So the decision was made to sell the property.
“It’s the end of an era,” she said. “But life goes on.”
naplesnews.com
Theater groups still in play from Naples to Estero
Closing of Naples Dinner Theatre leaves entertainment void that other companies will try to fill
By Harriet Howard Heithaus
Originally published — 3:59 p.m., April 21, 2007
Updated — 11:36 p.m., April 21, 2007
When the last curtain drops on “Show Boat” at Naples Dinner Theatre on Sunday night, local culture also will lose its Shakespearean motto to offer theater “As You Like It.”
There still are three theater companies that call Naples home and one stage, the Philharmonic Center for the Arts, that presents occasional touring productions, but none offers the triple threat of a meal, entertainment and a $50 price tag that characterized the dinner theater on Immokalee Road in North Naples.
Nor do the other companies see themselves as heavily invested in big-name musicals, which constituted more than three-quarters of the Naples Dinner Theatre repertoire.
From the shoestring Pelican Players to the Naples Players, with its Fifth Avenue South, two-stage home, each of them is courting a market that reaches extremities, but not the heart of a dinner-theater mission: family-friendly, upbeat musical productions that provide a single-location evening with on-site dining.
Still, several local companies are trying to take up the challenge of toque and theater.
Jim Rideoutte, executive director of Naples Players, is talking with several restaurants about the idea of offering a package — dinner and a play ticket — that would allow people to walk about a block to the theater. Nothing is set yet.
“I’d like to give it to one or two restaurants and give them (ticket buyers) a choice, and it’s going to have to be a reasonable price. If the price is going to be beyond a moderate price, we won’t do it.”
Currently, Naples Players tickets alone are $30, or $35 for musicals.
The 53-year-old amateur organization is the dinner theater’s closest relative, sharing some patrons and even amateur actors, who occasionally appeared in Naples Dinner Theatre’s salaried productions. Only the administrative staff of Naples Players is paid, however.
“What you got there for your dollar was a good deal,” Rideoutte said of the dinner theater. “You got a good meal. It wasn’t a gourmet meal, but they never represented it as such. You got a good show. They had four musicians in the pit for the musicals.”
Both appeal to general audiences with fare such as “Mame” and “Music Man,” although Naples Players has the Tobye Studio, a “black box” for deeper works such as “The Laramie Project” and “How I Learned to Drive.” It occasionally schedules drama in its 350-seat Blackburn Hall. One such play, in 2004, was “Art,” an acerbic three-character debate over the artistic merits of an expensive white canvas.
“Every once in a while we’re going to put on something that’s going to make you think, whether you want to or not,” Rideoutte quipped.
Naples Players even offers free valet parking at a Fourth Avenue South drive behind its home at the Sugden Community Theatre, an approximation of the dropoff portico at the Naples Dinner Theatre building.
But, Rideoutte said, “I don’t want to get into the restaurant business.”
TheatreZone, which calls the 250-seat G-and-L Theatre at Community School off Livingston Road its home, is also talking with the nearby Encore restaurant for a $50 dinner-performance package for its summer music revue, “Back to Bachrach and David.” Tickets alone are $35.
The TheatreZone mission is musical, but less familiar, fare than that of the Naples Dinner Theatre and Naples Players.
Founding Director Mark Danni said he has a taste for “musicals that should be performed more often but aren’t” — small-cast gems such as “Baby,” a musical contrasting three expectant couples, and the European pop-rock hit, “Chess.” Both were part of the TheatreZone’s opening 2006-07 season. Coming up is another work that doesn’t make the rounds often — the generation-defining 1970s rock musical “Hair.”
“We also want to be a launching ground for premieres, which we did with ‘Miracle in Rwanda,’” Danni said.
He is the Community School of Naples director of performing arts and the theater program supervisor. He came here with the understanding he could develop an Equity theater-in-residence.
Only the cramped backstage and school functions, which limit play runs, hamper TheatreZone, he said. Danni’s worry, ironically, is that a larger performing arts space the school has on the drawing board will compromise one of its current strengths.
“We’re hearing from the audience how much they like the intimacy,” he said of the G&L Theatre, where the terraced seats wrap around the front of the curved stage. He’s delighted with the audience reception of their fare: “Some of the audience thought ‘Chess’ was a touring production. It was that professional.”
Pelican Players considers Norris Center in Naples its home. Its community-centric amateur theater has been there since 1989 when the center’s previous version, a boxy park building, stood at Eighth Avenue and Eighth Street South.
The company is in rehearsal for its May 5 opening of “Opal’s Million-Dollar Duck,” about a junk-store dealer who inadvertently picks up a major artwork for a birthday gift, confounding art lovers who want to buy it from her.
Much of what Pelican Players do is comedy; it’s selected by founder John Lanham, a Social Security professional whose evenings are often devoted to scouting out first- and second-choice material. The latter comes into play if they can’t find a cast for their first choices. In fact, “Opal” is replacing “Impolite Comedy” for that reason.
“I’m like the football coach,” Lanham joked. “I’ve always got a B list of plays in my back pocket.”
Pelican Players is dedicated to giving newcomers a chance. As the company’s casual Web site points out, “Remember, Noah was an amateur when he built the ark. Professionals built the Titanic.”
With $18 tickets — those who sign up for the mailing list get a $3 discount — and audiences who are willing to take a risk, Pelican Players will celebrate its 20th year in 2008 with a season of shows that includes the one it never got to the stage: “Who’s on First.”
Hurricane Charley closed down the Norris Center on its opening weekend in 2004.
The Norris Center apparently isn’t big enough for two companies, however.
Stage 88, an outgrowth of the defunct Actors Repertory Theatre here, even took its name from the Eighth Street-Eighth Avenue South location, but moved last year to Bonita Springs.
“Naples is a tough place for theaters to sprout because there’s never been a lot of support for the new and different,” artistic/technical director Mark McClellan observed. “That’s not a knock on Naples. That’s just the way it is.
“When we came to Bonita Springs, the floodgates opened. The city of Bonita Springs has really embraced us. For our first production, we told ourselves we’d be lucky if we sold 40 tickets. We’ve actually sold out performances for our first two shows.”
Stage 88’s eclectic season included a musical McClellan wrote, “Four-Part Thunder,” as well as its current production through May 5, “The Conner Girls,” a probing look at family relationships. Stage 88 looks for the new and underappreciated.
Its ticket prices are $15 for plays, $25 for musicals, which McClellan gives as an example of their niche: “We have done shows like ‘Pump Boys and Dinettes,’ which a lot of community theaters don’t do because all the actors on the stage have to play in the band, too.”
McClellan calls Stage 88 a work-ethic company: “A lot of theater groups sprout up and come at you with an architectural drawing in one hand and the other in your back pocket. Our focus is on working. We’re in a much better position in three seasons to start asking about grants.
“I’m a Midwesterner. I have the Midwestern work ethic. Most of the people who are with us have the work ethic. We’re doers, not dreamers.”
Yet he has a vision: “We’d love, down the road, to be an anchor in Bonita Springs.”
Two gypsy companies playing in Naples are still looking for homes. Steven Ditmyer is the artistic director of the Neighborhood Theatre Company, which is only now returning with an encore presentation of “The Syringa Tree,” its 2004 hit.
The company has the Sugden Community Theatre for three performances of “The Syringa Tree” May 1, 7 and 8. Its last three performances were in the Naples Park Area Association Building, 654 104th Ave. N., including a production of “Art” an a trio of bittersweet one-acts.
“People don’t know how tough it was to do that,” he recalled of the season.
Because the building was home to classes and other events, the company sometimes had to tear down its sets several times a day. Property and construction prices are a major roadblock here, he said.
Still, he sees Naples as the place to put down roots for its thought-provoking, small-theater plays.
“It’s coming into its own,” he said. “The next 10 years there’s going to be a lot of growth happening in Naples. I don’t just mean people coming down. There’s a lot of growth in the arts that’s going to happen here, too.”
Gulfshore Playhouse already has property in Estero at U.S. 41 and Corkscrew Road on the edge of a development.
Kristen Coury, founder and producing artistic director, also has plans: a regional 550-seat theater with a six-show season in a 40,000-square-foot facility.
It doesn’t see itself as a musical theater; that’s turf well covered by the touring companies at the Philharmonic Center for the Arts in Naples and the Barbara B. Mann Performing Arts Hall in Fort Myers, Coury said. Its oeuvre, she said, is creative, professional theater at affordable prices.
Currently, Gulfshore is a playhouse in title only. It just closed three performances of “Romeo and Juliet Redefined,” a look at various forms the star-crossed lovers have come back in, on the open-air stage of Cambier Park in Naples.
“We won’t get another space until October,” Coury lamented.
She, like Ditmyer, sees a cultural opening here, but it isn’t for dinner theater.
“When push came to shove and there was a niche to fill, there was something between the presenting house (which handles touring company productions) and the producing theater, something in the vein of the Cleveland (Ohio) Playhouse missing here.”
© 2007 Naples Daily News and NDN Productions. Published in Naples, Florida, USA by the E.W. Scripps Co.