DINNER PLAYHOUSE FINDS A HOME IN JOHNSTOWN
Candlelight Dinner Playhouse in little Johnstown now in its 10th season
Have you ever seen that sign for the Candlelight Dinner Playhouse along Interstate 25, just before Johnstown?
You’d be forgiven if you missed it while blasting by at 75 miles per hour on your way to Fort Collins or Greeley. But if you like theater, you may want to slow down and discover Candlelight.
Located 43 miles north of Denver, the theater is adjacent to an RV dealership and a truck stop, and is surrounded by the cornfields and gas wells of tiny Johnstown (population: 15,389).
The smell of nearby feedlots wafts over the roomy parking lot next to the large steel building that houses the theater.
What is this place doing here?
What’s extraordinary about this venue is not just its location, but also the quality, scale and frequency of its productions. Just like any theater — from Broadway to the Denver Center to the most humble 50-seat community playhouse — the Candlelight is dedicated to transporting its audience to another place.
Candlelight has thrived over the last decade, and expanded, as it continues to offer topnotch, large-cast musicals year-round. The theater, which seats up to 350, typically does five big musicals a year, with long runs lasting between 10 and 12 weeks.
And here’s another surprise: With as many as 100 full- and part-time staffers, Candlelight is one of the largest theater operations in Colorado. On most nights, the place is packed, and during the holiday season — even with eight shows a week — it can be tough to get tickets at all.
The season launched Sept. 7 where it began in June 2008: with the Meredith Willson stalwart “The Music Man.” It’s typical of the shows put up here: family friendly classic musicals with strong name recognition. Don’t expect to see “Avenue Q” or “Rent” here, but it’s offering fare like “Beauty and the Beast” this holiday season, and Cole Porter’s “Kiss Me Kate” next spring.
With a live pit orchestra, top regional talent, lavish sets and costumes and dinner on top of it, it’s a comfortable place to take youngsters to their first live theater. Older patrons enjoy the familiar shows they may have seen many times before, with recognizable songs and plots and a comfortable table with a glass of wine in hand.
Unsurprisingly, putting together all the elements necessary to create a dinner theater adjacent to the Johnson’s Corner truck stop was no simple task. As executive director Dave Clark tells it, plenty of people told the founders they were crazy.
“It was just a group of four with a dream to do this,” Clark said.
Nick Turner, Gina Schuh Turner, Troy Schuh and Peter Muller were looking around for existing buildings in which to launch a dinner theater in 2005 “when they made a connection with Chauncey Taylor (the owner of Johnson’s Corner), who suggested they just build something new on some land he had nearby,” Clark added.
With land and another investor in Taylor, all the group needed was a builder. Enter Clark, at the time a local contractor in business with his brothers, who was hired to build the place.
“I figured it’d be like usual, where we’d build it and then turn it over,” Clark said with a laugh. “But I’m still here.”
A combination of the recession and building slump prompted Clark to take the reins managing the theater and leave his career as a contractor behind. It’s now owned by Clark and Taylor, under the company Candlelight Properties.
Clark is quick to point out that one of his weaknesses in joining the theater was his lack of theatrical experience. It was, he noted, also one of his strengths, since his no-nonsense approach to running the operation leaves others — like production manager Pat Payne and technical manager Shauna Johnson — free to focus on the plays themselves.
The theater opened its doors in June 2008. “Kiss Me Kate” will be its 50th production.
While the Candlelight draws theater-goers from as far away as Laramie, Cheyenne, Denver and Colorado Springs, it’s the locals who really appreciate the theater in a community that’s both farflung and quickly changing.
“We’re very fortunate to have the Candlelight,” said regular patron Bill Markham, who owns a nearby ranch. A lifetime resident of the area, Markham said he and his wife, Elizabeth, have been attending shows at the Candlelight since Day One. “I think the place is wonderful, a big asset to the community — we consider them our friends.”
The audience at the Candlelight on any given night might include a busload of seniors from Cheyenne, corporate groups, or parents or grandparents enjoying a fancy night out with the kids. You’ll see cowboy hats and boots, suits and ties, shorts and sandals and everything in between as patrons come as they are. But while the audience is laid back, Clark’s staff is a model of efficiency.
Like most dinner theaters, the actors double as the waiters, and they’ve got a pretty short window to get 300-plus patrons served before the quick change and leap to the stage.
With a newly remodeled kitch- en (done in just 10 days between shows), added conference space, a new set-building shop and other recent upgrades, the Candlelight appears poised for another decade bringing theater to an area that has little in the way of cultural amenities. By keeping quality up and staying friendly with other dinner theaters in Boulder and Fort Collins, Clark said the talent pool is deep enough to keep standards high and the lights on.
And while the Markhams pointed to “Oklahoma” and “Always, Patsy Cline” as recent favorites at the theater, a good meal and a night out in a friendly place keeps them coming back.