NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — A certain kind of performance space is certainly rare today. The COVID pandemic saw even more of these places close across the country. One particular venue is still going strong in Nashville.
Saturday night, dozens of people dressed as late 1800s newsboys worked backstage on a choreographed fight scene. The rehearsal was for the Larry Keeton Theatre's production of Disney's Newsies The Broadway Musical.
"I've directed and choreographed and helped build sets and that sort of thing for a whole bunch of projects," said Kevin F. Raymond, the theatre's artistic director.
The theatre's been around since 2004, now operating out of FiftyForward Donelson Station. It's something vintage, something most popular in the 1970s. It's a dinner theater.
"This is a really unique art form," said Raymond. "It is a theater that actually presents, on a rotating basis, licensed musicals."
That does make them unique from a different kind of dinner theater; themed shows you see in some places like Dolly Parton's Stampede and the Hatfields and McCoys Dinner Feud in Pigeon Forge.
"We're one of the last remaining dinner theaters in the United States that does actual book musicals," Raymond explained.
For the few dinner theaters left out there, the start of COVID was an especially painful time.
"It was horrifying for us," said Raymond. "We were closed for 18 months."
Those closures led to the end of not just dinner theaters, but all kinds of longtime theaters across the country.
"COVID killed off a lot of them that would have wanted to maintain themselves, and they couldn't financially," Raymond continued.
The losses included the beloved Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre in Nashville.
"Chaffin's closing down was a giant stab in the heart for most people," said Raymond. "It had been here for close to 50 years. When they closed, it was a huge loss for the city of Nashville."
The Larry Keeton Theatre's a unique situation. Being inside FiftyForward was key to its survival through COVID.
"They were closed, and we were closed, so there was no rent involved," Raymond explained. "We were fortunate enough to maintain, manage, stay afloat."
After an 18-month wait, the day finally came people were walking through those theater doors again.
"We're going on our twentieth season," said Raymond. "Twenty years is really wonderful for a business."
With a show to put on and dinner by Donelson Cafe and Catering, this is a place with its share of sold-out nights.
Raymond's happy to continue a long tradition of dinner theater in Nashville.
"We do have very large shoes to fill here at the Keeton," he said. "We are super proud. There's no other word. We're going strong."
