I received several responses from readers to last week’s column about the 20-year anniversary of Candlelight Dinner Playhouse’s closing.
“The Original Dinner Playhouse,” as it called itself on programs, is credited as the first venue to combine dinner and a show when it began staging productions at 5508 S. Archer Ave. in Summit in 1961.
Arts writer Ann Barzel, who died in 2007 at age 101, reviewed an early performance for Chicago’s American newspaper and said patrons could expect a fulfilling evening of entertainment for the low price of $3.95 in 1961.
“The play, understandably, is the thing, but the dinner is good,” Barzel wrote. “The entrees do not come in a wide choice, but there are extra good desserts including homemade apple pie (your mother should bake as well).”
Readers recalled enjoying many evenings of entertainment over the years at the dinner theater founded by William Pullinsi and his business partner, Anthony D’Angelo.
“I go back a long way with Candlelight even to when Pullinsi’s mother worked in the kitchen on Archer Avenue,” Hank King of Tinley Park said in an email. “I was not a subscriber but I saw possibly 100 shows there over the years, and decorated my family room with Candlelight programs.”
King said he “probably saw Lee Pelty in ‘Fiddler’ three times,” referring to the actor known for starring as Tevye in the musical “Fiddler on the Roof.” Pelty died in 2009 at age 74.
Readers recalled seeing quality productions featuring talented actors and good food, all at affordable prices.
“With five kids my folks could not afford to take us to the Candlelight,” Sue Smith of Oak Lawn said in an email. “Our dear Uncle Fred told us to get our ‘church clothes’ on for a surprise. We went to the Candlelight to see ‘Fiddler on the Roof.’
“We were amazed the small lamp in the center of the table went through the table! I can still see the scene of ‘If I Were a Rich Man.’ We had a delicious meal, too. (It was) a wonderful childhood memory.”
Some mentioned actors like Mandy Patinkin, Joe Mantegna and Shelly Long starred in Candlelight productions before they were famous celebrities. One remembered a 1976 show starring a well-known Chicagoan who hosted TV shows for children during the 1960s and 1970s featuring characters like Garfield Goose and Cuddly Dudley.
“I grew up watching Ray Rayner on WGN every morning, and ‘Guys and Dolls’ was one of my favorite musicals,” wrote Carol Kania Morency of Downers Grove. “I was thrilled to be able to see him play Nathan Detroit in ‘Guys and Dolls’ at the Candlelight.”
But seeing famous people onstage at the Candlelight was the exception, not the rule, Pullinsi told Joe Stead in a 2010 piece for Chicago Critic about how the Candlelight transformed theater in Chicago.
“There were very few professionally produced local plays,” prior to the Candlelight, Pullinsi is quoted as saying. “No Chicago company ran 52 weeks a year, no show ran longer than three weeks, and no theatre operated successfully without the star system. Candlelight opened with a resident company (no stars), ran each show six weeks or longer and produced 52 weeks a year.”
When I think about the Candlelight, I’m struck by the incredible efficiency with which it operated for many years. In 1964, the Candlelight moved into a larger space at 5620 S. Archer Ave. that later was expanded to 550 seats.
Thinking back to when I worked there as a waiter in 1987, the Candlelight was something like traveling on an airliner. Great effort went into selling as many seats for every show, like how airplanes typically operate at capacity today.
Unlike attending a movie in a cinema today — where it’s common to sit in a nearly empty theater for many screenings — I remember most Candlelight performances were sold out. That’s an amazing feat when I think about it.
I could find no official account of Candlelight attendance, but when I do the math I conservatively estimate the Candlelight must have sold more than 3 million tickets during its 36 years of existence.
Sustaining that level of efficiency must have been difficult when the Candlelight closed for financial reasons in 1997. The financial difficulties of its final years still shade some readers’ memories of the Candlelight.
“My wife and I were season subscribers and truly enjoyed the plays for quite a few years,” wrote Leroy Marcheschi of Orland Park. “We had just paid for the next season when three months later they shut down. We tried but we didn’t get our money back. It’s hard to have fond memories of a place when something like that happens.”
As the publication Playbill noted in its 1997 report on the closing of the Candlelight and its sister theater, The Forum, no refunds were offered but 16 other Chicago-area theaters including Drury Lane and Pheasant Run stepped up to offer ticket exchanges for Candlelight patrons.
Several reasons were cited for the Candlelight’s business struggles. Pullinsi at the time cited the relatively recent introduction of riverboat gambling in the Chicago area and northwest Indiana as competing for entertainment dollars.
The availability of Broadway shows was another reason cited. Productions like “Les Miserables” or “Titanic” were described as either too expensive to mount or having subject matter that made them off limits to family audiences. The bloody Stephen Sondheim musical “Sweeney Todd” may have entertained Broadway crowds, but it didn’t translate well to dinner theater.
There was one aspect of working as a waiter at the Candlelight I was going to mention in last week’s column, but I removed it. Then a reader mentioned it, so I’ll describe the situation.
“My husband and I saw wonderful shows and ate delicious dinners there, and we were treated to a surprise 25th anniversary party with all of our family in attendance,” wrote Nancy Perkovich of Hickory Hills.
Then Perkovich mentioned the situation that caused me to quit working as a waiter at the Candlelight after only a few months.
“My daughter worked as a bus girl at Candlelight for a brief time in the ’80s, working with a male waiter who was supposed to share his tips with her, but was seldom fair,” Perkovich wrote. “She came home with shredded pantyhose and was exhausted.”
Waiting tables at the Candlelight was unlike the typical experience working in a restaurant. You worked in teams and were supposed to evenly divide the shift’s tips. However, the day’s spoils were doled out to the most senior employees, and some of the more experienced crew members unscrupulously kept a larger share.
Sometimes, I remember, I’d work a full shift and have only $20 in tips to show for it. I suspected my partner was skimming, but there was nothing I could do about it.
Except quit, which is what I did.