Copperstate Dinner Theater Set To Close Its Doors

Copperstate Dinner Theater has announced that they will close. A statement issued by the theater reads as follows:

As you may have read in The Arizona Republic, The Phoenix Greyhound Park is closing. The Park has been in operation since 1954, but the current economic woes have proved to be just too much for the track. Attendance has dropped by more than 50% since 1998 and the decision to close the park was announced on Sept. 25th. Barring any unlikely move by the Arizona legislature to allow the Park to become a ‘Racino' - that is, adding slot machines, etc - the Park will cease operations on December 31st.

The Phoenix Greyhound Park has been home to The Copperstate Dinner Theater since April of 2002. with the closing of the Park comes also the closing of The Copperstate Dinner Theater. While a search for a new location will take place in the hopes that the valley's oldest dinner theater will continue, all operations of the dinner theater at the Park are planning to cease Dec. 31st.

The Copperstate Dinner Theater began in 1981 when Max Beyer, owner of Max's Sports Grill in Glendale contacted Candace Lincoln with the idea of turning their small banquet room into a dinner theater. The theater opened in 1981 with a production of the popular farce Pajama Tops. Candace ran the theater for several years before passing the reigns to Trudy Hurley who in turn turned the operation over to Jacque Gaston. In 1994, when Jacque became ill, Candace returned for a brief time before turning the theater over to Peter J. Hill, who, with his partner and wife Noel Irick, still run the theater today. In 2002, Max's was sold to Phoenix Greyhound Park which turned the banquet room into a state of the art off-track betting facility. However, Greyhound Park's General Manager, Dan Luciano recognized the value of the dinner theater and built a lovely, intimate 100 seat theater inside the Greyhound Park. The theater has launched many careers and has seen many popular valley actors on its stages including Robyn Allen, Robyn Ferracane, Rusty Ferracane, Bob Sorenson and Jon Gentry.

Over the years Copperstate has won numerous AriZoni Awards for excellence in Theater most recently Christmas Jukebox, the hit musical, which was named been named Best Original Production of the Year by the AriZoni Awards of Theatrical Excellence! In fact we'll be bringing it back for the Holiday season this year, so get your reservations now! It could be the last hurrah.

On a personal note, Noel and I are deeply saddened to have to close our treasured theater. Those who have attended Copperstate or worked with us over the many years know that the dinner theater was never a ‘money pot' but more of a ‘money pit'. However, it was a labor of love for the both of us and, should we fail to find a new location, we will miss it terribly.

If you have a gift certificate, please use them before the end of the year. Should we be sucessful in finding a new location, we will honor those certificates there.

We will attempt to find a new location, and we'll let you know how our efforts progress.

Thank you for your support of the years;

Until then, as always,

We'll see you at the theater.

Peter Hill & Noel Irick

 

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