Former dinner theater in Akron has new calling

Associated Press

AKRON

A defunct dinner theater that entertained northeast Ohio audiences for more than 30 years will soon be full again, this time with churchgoers.

The former Carousel Dinner Theatre in Akron has been sold to a suburban church that tried unsuccessfully to acquire the property at auction nearly a year ago. An electrical contractor that submitted the winning bid ultimately decided it didn’t want to undertake the extensive renovations necessary to transform the building for its purposes, the Akron Beacon Journal reported.

The pastor of Community Baptist Temple of Lakemore said he believed God had a hand in the turnabout.

“I still felt that was our building and that we were supposed to be there,” the Rev. Mark O’Donnell said. “I didn’t know how it was going to happen, but we were very confident that with the Lord nothing was impossible.”

Gary Didado, president of J.W. Didado Electric Inc., said in announcing the resale that the transaction could have been the result of divine intervention.

“We’re happy because we would have needed to gut the building to meet our needs and it would have never been the same,” Didado said. “We just couldn’t see destroying that building, so we’re pleased that it is going to the church.”

When it went out of business in January 2009, the 800-seat dinner theater left hundreds of ticket holders in the lurch. Its owner said the reasons for the closing included a weak economy, rising costs and declining ticket sales. Attendance dropped 11 percent in 2008.

The theater first began operating in 1973 in what had once been a supermarket in Ravenna, and it moved in 1988 into the Akron site, a former nightclub.