The Carousel Dinner Theatre has discovered that in theater, as in sports, coming in first matters.
Kurt Terrio took over his modest Fort Collins warehouse in September 2001 with a goal to premiere newly available Broadway blockbusters before anyone else in Colorado. Easier said than done when he’s back in the pecking order behind national touring productions and bigger professional houses like the Arvada Center and the now-shuttered Country Dinner Playhouse.
Still, Carousel has amassed a remarkable record in that time, beating everyone to the first local stagings of “Jekyll and Hyde,” “Cats,” “Miss Saigon,” and, with the exception of a now-closed dinner theater in Grand Junction, “Beauty and the Beast.”
That strategy, he says, “has put us on the map.”
Now he can add the biggest coup of all: On Friday, Carousel debuts the hilariously offensive Mel Brooks musical “The Producers,” which won 12 Tony Awards and demolished Broadway box-office records.
Which is what Terrio is hoping happens at his place too.
“We’re very proud to offer our audiences their first chance to see these productions,” said Terrio. “We feel like we have a little different demographic in Fort Collins than you expect from dinner theaters. Our audiences not only want to see the new stuff, they demand it.”
Terrio and his wife inherited 200 subscribers when they bought the Carousel in 2001. It was so rough at first, he wasn’t sure there was going to be a 2002. But then came “Jekyll and Hyde.” By the end of “Cats” in ’04, he had 1,500 subscribers, and that’s steadily increased since to 3,000.
“We always wanted to make our own path and do shows we thought people wanted to see,” Terrio said. ” ‘Cats’ (which drew 10,500) was a sign from above for us to take that path.”
That road now leads to “The Producers.” The show is only now available after a second film and a series of national tours, including one that came to Denver in 2004. All the while, the Broadway juggernaut continued, grossing $283 million over six years, ending in 2007.
The first question Terrio always gets, no matter what the show, is, “How are you going to do a show like that justice?” in his little, 100-seat space. You just can’t touch the pageantry and spectacle of Broadway here.
Turns out, most of his audiences prefer it this way.
“Our space is the bane of my existence,” Terrio admits, “but it’s also a blessing. People are always telling me they like seeing it so up-close. The intimacy they get in return allows them to take something different away from the show. During ‘Cats,’ people would say time after time, ‘I saw this on Broadway, but I understood it better here.’
“They were able to make a more personal connection with these characters than they could sitting in Row Z of the Buell Theatre.”
“The Producers” is another story: no intimate connections to be made in Brooks’ outrageously inappropriate story of two theatrical producers who imagine a get-rich scheme to stage the world’s worst musical, then abscond with the investments.
“It’s just over-the-top funny,” said Terrio, whose 15-person cast is only a bit smaller than Broadway’s 22. “In many ways it’s a traditional, big show that pokes fun at all things show business.”
He’s not worried about offending audiences with its exaggerated Jewish stereotypes or turning Hitler effete. Brooks is Jewish, after all. “And I don’t think anyone will stand up and say they were offended by the way Hitler is portrayed,” he said.
But that was Broadway. You never can predict how traditionally conservative and more rural dinner audiences will react to anything.
“Our audiences go against the grain,” Terrio said. “The more risque the show, the fewer gripes we get. For example, we only got one or two complaints out of the 7,000 who saw the (male-stripper comedy) ‘The Full Monty.’ But we got 10 for ‘Beauty and the Beast’ because people thought the dresses were too low-cut.”
“The Producers” runs through Oct. 25. Three weeks later, the first metro Denver staging opens, at Boulder’s Dinner Theatre.
John Moore: 303-954-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com
“The Producers”
Musical comedy. Carousel Dinner Theatre, 3509 S. Mason St., Fort Collins. Written by Mel Brooks. Starring Scott Rathbun and Colin Harrington. Through Oct. 25. 7:45 p.m. Thursday-Saturday; 1:45 p.m. Saturday and Sunday (dinner 90 minutes before). $34-$44. 970-225-2555 or
