Tinseltown Shows Cut to 3 Weekly

Struggling Tinseltown Studios is reducing the number of shows to three a week and will focus on attracting what has become its core audience: senior citizens, women ages 25 to 49 and teenagers, officials at the Anaheim dinner theater said Monday.

“We are going with what we are doing well,” said Tinseltown General Manager Ron Drake.

The 678-seat theater is designed to make guests feel as though they are insiders at a Hollywood awards show. They are greeted by autograph hounds and paparazzi. After entering the theater, they are entertained by a musical tribute to Hollywood.

When Tinseltown opened last November, it offered twice-nightly shows six days a week. The next month, the shows were reduced to one a night four times a week because of slumping ticket sales. The dinner theater still had two shows on Saturdays.

Under the new schedule that takes effect July 2, Tinseltown will offer one show each on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Drake said New York-based Ogden Corp., which bankrolled the dinner theater, has no plans to close the facility.

Drake said there will be no layoffs among the theater’s 221 employees, most of whom are part-time. He also said the facility’s admission price of $44.50 will not be reduced but said there are discounts for groups of more than eight and noted that the admission price for senior citizens is $34.50.

Executives also are considering whether to seek alternative uses when shows aren’t being performed at the $15 million theater, which is on the fringe of an Edison International Field parking lot.