Dinner Theater

What does it take to get cozy with Prince? Plenty of luck and a chunk of paycheck. The purple-favoring artist kicks off a seven-show stand at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel on Saturday, offering guests dinner from his personal chef, a two-hour performance and an after-set jazz jam, all with a price tag commensurate with his icon status. Prince, Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, 7000 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Sunday and June 28-30; two dates TBA.

IT'S a Saturday night at the French restaurant Taix in Echo Park, and a couple of drag queens named Roxxi Botoxxi and Sandy Mangina are engaging an audience of increasingly tipsy Eastsiders. Mangina, a.k.a. Ben Been, a brunet in a hoop skirt, surveys the male patrons with an overheated up-and-down stare and banters uneasily with the women. "So what's your story?" she says, audaciously catty.

The Celebrity Dinner Theater, offering a meal and a musical, has been confirmed as the first tenant of the Santa Ana Performing Arts and Event Center. Improvements to the lighting, sound system and backstage must precede the anticipated mid-November opening of "A Big Band Christmas." Limon/Carr Productions of Tustin has contracted to bring shows to one of the three halls in the downtown venue, a restored, 71-year-old Masonic Temple.

After reading the litany of excuses in "Guests Didn't Flock to L.A. 'Wedding' " (Theater Notes, by Don Shirley, March 18), I can better explain what killed "Tony n' Tina's Wedding": negative word-of-mouth. No talent. No script. A director and cast who thought that yelling, arguing and fighting were substitutes for meaningful dialogue and emotional drama. As if that weren't enough, the ticket prices rivaled Music Center productions, and the cafeteria-style food would qualify for worst dinner theater ever award.

I am drinking wine from a plastic cup and sharing a table with perfect strangers, yet it is Aimee Mann pondering the musical question, "How am I different?" Don't worry! I feel like yelling out to her as Greg, our harried waiter, takes away our plates while holding a mini flashlight in his mouth. It's not you, Aimee. Really. All things considered, Greg is doing a great job: taking orders over the music, clearing plates, figuring out checks in the darkness of the theater.

Tucked away among three auto repair shops, the Granada Theatre has been producing community theater for 21 years, launching actors' careers and providing entertainment to hundreds of San Fernando Valley residents. At the request of subscribers, the theater's season will be expanded from four to five productions next year, said Jo Erickson, the theater's founder and executive director. The theater's $300,000 annual budget is derived from subscriptions, donations and fund-raisers.

Tinseltown Studios, which has struggled with attendance since its opening, will close its doors to the general public Aug. 1 and limit its Hollywood awards show to corporate events, general manager Ron Drake said Thursday. When it opened last November, the Anaheim dinner theater offered twice-nightly shows six days a week. Within a month, the shows were reduced to one per night four times a week because of slumping ticket sales. There were two shows on Saturdays.

Former Disneyland President Jack B. Lindquist, who played a major role in the creation of Tinseltown Studios in Anaheim, said Monday he is parting ways with the entertainment division of New York-based Ogden Corp., which bankrolled the struggling dinner theater. Lindquist, 72, said he is not being made a scapegoat for Tinseltown's woes, which include disappointing ticket sales and a union organization effort.