Lynk’s text Dinner Theatre: A Survey and Directory, published in 1993, is a wealth of information on the subject and provides a very in depth history. When reviewing the theatres listed in the directory, however, many of them unfortunately turned out to be closed. Lynk mentions the American Dinner Theatre Institute (ADTI), which subsequently had to fold after shortly after a legal battle with the Actors Equity Association (AEA) over payments.

You can read a 1986 decision on the matter from the Eighth Circuit court here.

Many theatres that were under this organization and many that were independent unfortunately followed suit and did not survive. Those under the National Dinner Theatre Association (NCTA) are still in existence.

A 1987 article in the LA Times sums up the hardships faced by dinner theatres at the time: http://articles.latimes.com/1987-12-15/entertainment/ca-29078_1_dinner-theater-tickets

This article does, however, manage to paint an optimistic picture for theatre moving forward and as the 90’s progressed there was a resurgence in dinner theatre though the companies lost in these legal and financial complications did not recover. There are currently fewer dinner theatres than there were before the ADTI and economic collapses, but the ones that are here are thriving.

Lynk, W.M. (1993). Dinner theatre: A Survey and Directory. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.