Golden Apple Dinner Theater in Venice, Florida, has closed.
Robert Ennis Turoff, producer, announced in a brief Sarasota Herald-Tribune article that Buffalo Bob's food service, which catered the Apple's buffets, was incompatible with the Apple's theatrical operation. The May 3, 2003 end of How the Other Half Loves by Alan Ayckbourn thus ended 14 years of the Venice satellite of Sarasota's Golden Apple, now in its 32nd season.
When Coastal Productions opened its Golden Apple in Venice, it was adjacent to a Best Western resort-style motel, off U.S. 41 South (the Tamiami Trail). Since the inn is not on the water, the presence of an in-house theater proved a significant tourist attraction. For years, Best Western featured food by a well-known local chef. Since Holiday Inn took over, chefs and caterers seem to have changed like the theater bills. Until Buffalo Bob came in, the Golden Apple and various food services have been able to adjust to each other's needs.
In Sarasota, Golden Apple Dinner Theater presents its own buffet for patrons who dine in their "theater seats" at individual tables where beverages are served before and during each performance. At Venice, the buffet and dining space were adjacent to an intimate theater with regular seating. After dinner, while a performance would be taking place in there, Buffalo Bob might host a jazz gig, loud dance fest, or group meeting in the cleared buffet-dining space. In addition to the noise often generated, audiences sometimes heard they would be moved for dinner into other, more remote-from-the-Theater spaces or alloted only one server by Buffalo Bob.
The Venice closing was the main topic of talk at the latest show opening in Sarasota. Jenny Aldrich, one lead in Ayckbourn's play and a frequent actor on the Venice stage, wondered "if I'll ever work steady again. I don't have much of a singing voice." She was referring to the Sarasota Golden Apple's all-musical seasons. When this flagship Theater of Coastal Theater Productions named itself "Broadway on the Suncoast" a few years ago, it stopped staging straight plays. It had been the place in Sarasota to see Ray Cooney farces, Neil Simon comedies, occasional thrillers or romances, in addition to musicals. Venice Golden Apple Dinner Theater took up some of that programming.
Under the artistic as well as general management of Benjamin Turoff, the Venice Golden Apple became known for its annual presentation of a popular operetta. The Theater got by sometimes with as few performers as one piano accompanist and eight actor-singers. A decision to "camp" the often absurdly-plotted pieces made them, in effect, musical comedies.
Satisfying a mostly older audience with a taste for matinee comedies of the 1940s and 1950s, Venice Golden Apple also presented contemporary plays with "clean" humor and without explicit sex or censorable language. At times, a play from the Sarasota Golden Apple would be restaged on the smaller stage in Venice. A reversal of that will take place next season when Nunsense II, which had its first Golden Apple production last season in Venice, moves to Sarasota.
Roberta MacDonald, Associate Producer for Coastal Productions, said that the Turoffs still have a year's lease at the Venice Theater in the Holiday Inn. It is possible they will stage a short holiday (some would say "ironic") run of a proven favorite, like Amahl and the Night Visitors.
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