Theme Parks Play Dress-Up, Shutdown

BUENA PARK — Knott’s Berry Farm has dropped the curtain on a four-decade tradition of daily performances at its Birdcage Theatre and will now stage its 19th century melodramas only on special occasions and holidays, park officials said Monday.

About 20 troupe members lost their jobs. Park officials said declining interest in performances at the theater, a near-replica of the original Birdcage in Tombstone, Ariz., prompted the decision. The theater’s 42-year streak ended Sunday afternoon with a performance of the “Wreck of the Bluebell Express.”

“Forty-two years is an impressive run,” said Dana Hammontree, a spokeswoman for theme park. “But it wasn’t drawing in as many people as we would like.”

Since 1954, hundreds of performers including Steve Martin, Donna Mills and singer Rick Nelson have graced the Birdcage’s horseshoe-shaped stage, park officials said. Many troupe members were local college students.

The venue’s first daily show was Dion Bouclcault’s “The Streets of New York,” which featured a one-minute intermission for audience members to “dry their eyes,” park officials said. Other productions included “Our American Cousin”--the show Abraham Lincoln attended the night of his assassination--”The Drunkard” and “Tombstone Alive.”

In almost all respects, the Knott’s theater mirrors the original Birdcage long since closed in Tombstone. In a bow to modern audiences, however, builders of the Orange County replica improved sight lines and ditched the original hard wooden seats.

Also, unlike the first theater, the local version came without six luxury boxes. At the Tombstone theater, park officials said, the boxes were screened by heavy velvet curtains for “gentlemen to enjoy the melodrama--and a lady friend.”

The 250-seat theater, in Ghost Town, will continue to be part of the theme park’s “hands on” history program called Adventures in Education. More than 100,000 schoolchildren have visited the theater for performances and to experience historical exhibits that show life during the westward expansion.