Salty Dinner actors bring along fun and Frankenstein

SANDY — Dinner with a monster can be fun, provided the monster is willing to stomp down the aisles between courses, dodging waiters.

And if you throw in a comic Igor and a langourous Bride of Frankenstein, it can be downright entertaining in an unusual sort of way.

That's what Mary Brassard believes.

And the audience gathered at Madeline's in Sandy recently seemed to agree.

Although it was difficult to hear, the show was fun — especially Igor (played by Brassard) as she chatted up the diners and tossed off one-liners.

"All these good people look like organ donors," she tells Dr. Frankenstein.

"Is Edward around?" asks a cast member.

"No, I cut him. He became a vampire!" she replies.

"Igor stole the show," said Brandon Behrmann, a BYU student who came to the show out of sheer curiosity.

Skylar Gifford, also a BYU student, agreed. "Igor is very witty, very quick with the crowd," he said.

Other diners said the show added humor to the evening, although some of the younger children didn't like the scary characters much.

The "rewinds" add a dimension that's unique, as do the songs taken from various musicals ("Show That Vein" instead of "He's So Vain"), done in multiple languages and dialects.

"I started this group with my savings," said Brassard, who has a day job at Wells Fargo Bank and moonlights with the Salty Dinner Theater troupe. She writes the shows and oversees the auditions and bookings.

She does it because she loves theater and enjoys audience participation.

They've been together for one year, doing dinner shows from Salt Lake to Orem. Usually the shows are tied to a particular season or holiday such as Halloween, Valentine's and Christmas.

The Halloween show is all about Frankenstein, his creation and bizarre life.

"It's not a murder mystery. We are audience-interactive," Brassard said. "We do classic titles with narration, music, a lot of fun."

Brassard said so far ticket sales are brisk and most of the shows they schedule sell out.

Members of the acting troupe are chosen by audition and are paid per gig. In addition to working restaurants, Salty Dinner Theater will do private parties.

Actors need to be good at characterization as well as comfortable working with an audience, individually and as a group.

The restaurant provides the meal and gets the money for the food. The troupe collects a ticket price of $15 per person for a two-hour show.

Upcoming Halloween shows include The Old Spaghetti Factory in Orem on Oct. 21, 27 and 31 beginning at 7 p.m.; Madeline's in Sandy on Oct. 24 and 29; and Joe Morley's BBQ in Midvale on Oct. 22 and 28.

For more information, call 801-262-5083 or visit www.saltydinnertheater.com.

Sharon Haddock is a professional writer with 30 years experience, 17 at the Deseret News. Her personal blog is at sharonhaddock.blogspot.com.

Email: haddoc@desnews.com