Toby's Dinner Theatre, Dinner theatre in Columbia, United States
Toby's Dinner Theatre is a dinner theatre in Columbia, Maryland, where guests watch live musical productions while seated around a central stage in a circular arrangement. The setup means no seat is far from the performers, and a buffet meal is part of every evening.
The venue opened in 1979, founded by Toby Orenstein with the idea of pairing professional theatre with a shared meal from the very start. Over the following decades it became one of the longest-running dinner theatres on the East Coast of the United States.
The seating wraps all the way around the stage, so the audience surrounds the performers on every side, which gives the show a different feeling than a traditional theatre. The buffet dinner is served before and during the show, making the meal a real part of the evening rather than just a side element.
Because the seating fully surrounds the stage, there is no traditional front or back, so it is worth asking about your seat placement when you book. Accessible seating is available, and parking is located near the building, though it tends to fill up early on busy nights.
Unlike many dinner theatres that use recorded soundtracks, Toby's has a live orchestra playing during every musical production, with the musicians in the same room as the audience. This means the sound of the show comes from actual performers rather than a speaker system.
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