As I begun my research process, it became obvious that live dinner theatres were a niche market and, for the states that had such an organization,  there would only be one or two. Digging deeper, many of these venues turned out to be in Pennsylvania. Initially, I’d only found 5, but then I found this article:

http://www.whereandwhen.com/Articles/PA+Dinner+Theaters/

The list provided here included all the organizations I’d already found and the ones I had not found yet were still found to be active after some searching. With my curiosity building, I did a little more research and even found a couple of more companies to end up with an impressive list of 10 dinner theatres in Pennsylvania:

• Dutch Apple Dinner Theatre (Lancaster, PA)*
• The Station Dinner Theatre (Erie, PA)
• Allenberry Playhouse (Boiling Springs, PA)*
• Rainbow Dinner Theatre (Paradise, PA)*
• Pines Dinner Theatre (Allentown, PA)
• The Music Box Dinner Playhouse (Kingston, PA)
• Gettysburg Civil War Era Dinner Theatre (Fairfield, PA)
• The Riverside Inn & Dinner Theatre (Cambridge Springs, PA)
• Timbers Restaurant and Dinner Theatre (Mount Gretna, PA)
• Mystery Theatre (Philadelphia, PA)

This begged the question why- why were there so many organizations filling the same niche in one place?

Going through the website of each of these companies, I began to find some pretty significant differences. Dutch Apple and Mystery Theatre are both very high end place with tickets costing around $50 per person. The Riverside Inn & Dinner Theatre is also on the higher end cost wise, and their venue and events are much for formal. However, The Music Box Dinner Playhouse is much more affordable offering a variety of rates including show-only tickets for under $20. The Station Dinner Theatre and Timbers Restaurant and Dinner Theatre are not much more expensive.

It can thus be concluded that each of these companies, being in different parts of the state and at different price points with different ambiance and artistic offerings, fills a particular creative need. Additionally, there is quite a bit of funding available for the arts in Pennsylvania compared with many other states.  Additionally, there is a lot of cultural and socioeconmic diversity Pennsylvania. Though somewhat random, Pennsylvania having so many dinner theatre options is appropriate.