Tinseltown Theater Will Give Diners a Taste of Celebrity

When the $15-million Tinseltown Studios dinner theater debuts in Anaheim on Friday, the stars of the show will often hail from boardrooms and sales offices.

Want an unusual reward for a chief executive or top agents? As part of a group booking, they can be worked into the ceremony, which makes customers “insiders” at a Hollywood awards banquet. Or, for $25,000 or $30,000, buy out the entire show--and guarantee someone a place in the spotlight, clutching a statuette.

Tinseltown hopes to get 30% of its customers from business or other groups. Special roles in the show can be arranged for groups as small as 20 or 30 in the 678-seat hall, said Thomas C. Etter, senior vice president of owner Ogden Entertainment.

“And if people want to buy out the facility,” Etter said, “we’ll do anything they want: change the show, cook a special meal, serve a special wine.”

Tinseltown, which resembles a movie studio lot, was dreamed up by a group that includes former Disneyland President Jack Lindquist. Ogden Entertainment, which manages the Anaheim Pond and operates concessions at Edison International Field, wanted to bankroll a dinner theater and liked the Hollywood concept.

The alliance is betting that thrill-seeking suburbanites, visiting aunts from Dubuque, tourists and special groups will revel in walking a red carpet as cameras roll and lights flash.

That may have seemed a surer bet two years ago, when Ogden Entertainment signed on and before themed restaurants ran into trouble. At celebrity-backed Planet Hollywood, whose restaurants are adorned with movie memorabilia, falling sales have driven the stock price from $32 to the $4 range--and raised questions about whether the public has swallowed all the glamour hype it can stomach.

Tinseltown’s promoters believe they can overcome such problems with heavy audience participation that they hope will make ogling an ax from “The Shining” at a Planet Hollywood restaurant seem dull.

Tinseltown’s $44.50-a-head guests will be greeted by “mogul” Cohnwarner Mayerwyn Selznuck, “autograph hounds” and “paparazzi” (photos can be purchased separately, along with alcoholic drinks and souvenirs). Video crews tape interviews, with choice responses replayed later on the giant screens flanking the stage.

The interviews also will help identify candidates for the awards capping the musical dinner show. Eight audience members per show become “nominees,” spliced electronically into real movie scenes: Kevin Costner in “Field of Dreams,” John Belushi in “Animal House,” Jessica Tandy in “Fried Green Tomatoes,” Janet Leigh in “Psycho.”

In addition to those featured roles, virtually every guest at every show--twice nightly, six nights a week--will be on screen at least briefly.

“My wife swore she’d kill me if she has to say anything in front of a camera,” said Lindquist, the former Disneyland president who conceived Tinseltown with another former Disney executive, Jim Garber.

“I told her nobody has to do anything they don’t want to. But during the show, the cameras are going to pan the tables, so there’ll probably be a shot of her sitting there.”

It’s Dinner Theater At a Whole New Level

Nora Lee, editor of the Urban Land Institute newsletter The EZone, said the intense interactivity “may be the very thing Planet Hollywood is lacking. There, you’re on the outside looking in. And the food isn’t very good.”

Long-term success will depend on the quality of Tinseltown’s 17-person cast, Lee said. “This is a bet on the people. If the people are very good, and the illusion works, that can overcome all kinds of other shortcomings.”

Lindquist promises that the quality of the limited menu--top sirloin steak, Norwegian salmon, chicken piccata and vegetarian pasta--and of the entertainers will be top drawer.

“It’s got to compare with things they can see in Las Vegas, on Broadway and on television,” he said. “We’re taking the dinner theater to a whole new level of sophistication. And if you’re going to the Academy Awards, you don’t find a pitcher of beer and a pitcher of sangria on the table.”

History shows that when it works, interactive dinner theater can be a smash. “Tamara,” a decadent whodunit in which the audience trailed cast members from room to room in search of clues, ran for nine years at an old Hollywood American Legion post decked out as an Italian villa.

And “Tony ‘n’ Tina’s Wedding,” which drops guests into a raucous Italian wedding along with a lecherous father-in-law, a tipsy priest and a pregnant bridesmaid, has played off-Broadway since 1988 and has spawned more than 50 productions worldwide.

Ogden officials said “Tony ‘n’ Tina” is one of several dinner entertainments that are models for what they hope will become a chain of Tinseltowns.

Others include Dixie Stampede, a Dolly Parton-backed Civil War show now battling it out at three locations, and Medieval Times, a jousting tournament whose seven locations include Buena Park. Etter said operating profit margins can run 50% at such venues.

Immersion in role-playing “is a huge part” of the shows, said Medieval Times spokesman David Manuel. At his 1,122-seat Beach Boulevard castle, visiting “lords and ladies” are toasted by the king, assigned colors matching the knights they cheer on, and tear roasted chickens apart with bare hands.

“We think this makes a much more exciting experience for them than watching a movie or something like that where you’re just a spectator,” Manuel said.

Group business at the Buena Park Medieval Times, normally about 15% of the total, peaks during the year-end banquet season at 30%--the same percentage Tinseltown hopes to achieve year-round.

The novel concept, heavy promotion and the plentiful opportunities to make stars of the guests will give Tinseltown a good shot at achieving its goal, Manuel said.

Demand Strong for Premium Packages

Indeed, Tinseltown will open with $1.5 million in advance group bookings, including nine “buyouts” in December alone, said the theater’s general manager, Ron Drake. Discounts of up to 17% are available for large parties, but 70% of the groups have bought packages that cost more than the $44.50-a-person base.

“The corporate customers especially are getting into the premium packages,” Drake said. “They’re adding in bottles of champagne or wine, photographs, souvenir merchandise, well drinks at the bar. It’s been a lot better than we expected.”

Also greater than expected have been requests to rent the site for daytime events. After agreeing to put on one lunch and one breakfast, Tinseltown suspended non-evening special bookings until after the first of the year. “We didn’t want to be unfocused on our primary mission,” Drake said.

Nancy Keith, a Bank of America events manager, believes special rentals could become a huge part of Tinseltown’s business, particularly because it has expensive audio-visual systems that organizers elsewhere would have to rent and set up separately.

“I think it’s a great concept--and I think if they take it to the max they can make some real money,” said Keith, who frequently arranges lunch programs to honor bank employees.

“Given what we have to spend on these luncheon events, I do not have the kind of dollars to build in that kind of AV,” she said. “If it’s already there for you, that makes a day event much better for us costwise.”

Keith said she’ll wait to experience Tinseltown firsthand before deciding on taking over the whole theater for events. She’ll be part of a party of 24, honoring top Bank of America employees in South Orange County, for the premiere night.

The employees have been sent formal black and silver invitations instructing them to gather at a district headquarters in Irvine. Limousines will carry them to Tinseltown, and expectations are high.

The manager for the district “is very gregarious,” Keith said, “and he’s determined that these folks will be chosen to be part of the show.”

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Go to Tinseltown with a Hollywood insider: Does it really make you feel like a celebrity? In Thursday’s Times