Theater In A Box Can Bring In The Bucks

50 years at the Fireside: Small-town dinner theater with big-time crowds celebrates half a century

Dick Klopcic came to Fort Atkinson in the 1950s to resurrect a bowling alley, but ended up inviting the town to Broadway.

With his wife, Betty, Dick Klopcic built what was to become The Fireside Dinner Theatre, a Wisconsin entertainment landmark that celebrates 50 years this month. Founded in 1964 as a supper club, the Fireside added a theater and began producing professional Broadway musicals in 1978.

Since then, an estimated 7 million people have seen the Fireside’s shows.

“This was in the middle of a cornfield,” said Rick Klopcic, who took the reins of the Fireside from his dad, Dick, in 1993 and is now in the process of handing things over to his eldest son, Ryan.

Back in the 1970s, “We asked people in town, ‘What do you think about a dinner theater?’ ” Rick Klopcic recalled. “They said, ‘You need a straitjacket. Nobody’s going to come to Fort Atkinson.’ ”

But people did — busloads of them. Fireside Theatre evolved into a top motorcoach tour destination, and its work to lure tourists to this city of about 13,000 35 miles southeast of Madison posthumously won Dick Klopcic the state department of tourism’s Legacy Award in 2011.

Five years earlier, the Klopcics were named “America’s Best Restaurant Family” by Jones Dairy Farm and the Culinary Institute of America.

Today the Fireside presents seven shows a year, over 50 weeks a year. It’s currently midway through a run of “Fiddler on the Roof,” a musical the Fireside has produced five times before. Starring then and now in the lead role of Tevye is Ed Flesch, the Fireside Theatre’s artistic director.

When Dick Klopcic tracked down Flesch in a 1970s production of

“Fiddler” at Madison’s long-gone dinner theater Wilson Street East and offered him the job of starting a new theater in Fort Atkinson, “I said, ‘Sure. Where’s Fort Atkinson?’ ” Flesch recalled.

Flesch told Klopcic his idea was “nuts,” but took the job.

“We opened in April of 1978 and I thought, OK, I’ll be here about a year,”

Flesch recalled. “That was 36 years ago.”

Flesch stuck around all these years because of the rare career opportunity the Fireside has given him: complete artistic control of show after show, directing the genre he loves best, musical theater.

The theater collaborates with UW-Parkside to build its sets, has its own costume shop and travels to New York and Chicago to audition and recruit its Equity actors. Many have just come off Broadway shows or touring companies for a two-month stint at the Fireside.

For audiences, the Fireside’s formula is unique: Unlike most dinner theaters, where the diners eat and watch a show from the same table, the Fireside offers a separate restaurant space and theater. Seats in the theater ring the stage, offering audiences a close-up musical experience, Ryan Klopcic said.

“Costumes are a big deal for us, because somebody sitting (in the front row) can see how good or bad they look,” he said. “They have to be top-notch.”

That attention to detail, along with family hospitality and expert marketing, have helped the Fireside thrive in a tough industry, its owners say. When it opened, the Fireside’s theater was among 120 dinner theaters nationwide; today the National Dinner Theatre Association has fewer than 20 members.

Wisconsin experienced a mini-renaissance of dinner theaters in 2006 and 2007 with the short-lived Broadway Theatre in the Dells, which is now a home decor store, and the opening of the Armory in Janesville. The Armory reluctantly gave up producing musicals in 2011 and today operates as a restaurant, hosting a comedy night on Fridays and large events such as wedding receptions.

Fort Atkinson knows what a “treasure” it has in its unusual dinner theater, said Dianne Hrobsky, executive director of the Fort Atkinson Area Chamber of Commerce.

“In Fort Atkinson, we don’t take the Fireside for granted,” she said. “When we see those buses come down Main Street, we all know where they’re headed.”

Along with the bus tours that roll in from 15 states, the Fireside has a loyal regional following — like Sue Pecotte of DeForest, who’s been attending Fireside shows for more than 40 years. About a decade ago, she and her husband began bringing their entire family each year to “A Fireside Christmas.”

Fireside founders Dick and Betty Klopcic came to Fort Atkinson from Milwaukee, where they ran a tavern owned by Dick’s dad. In Fort Atkinson, they turned around a bankrupt bowling alley, then set their sights on opening a supper club. A banker told them about a young local architect, Helmut Ajango.

“He said if you want a 1984 building in 1964,” hire Ajango, recalls Rick Klopcic.

The result was the original Fireside, a 60-foot-square pyramid with seating for 120 — and a fireplace, of course. The building’s base was glass block, which when lit up at night created “a spaceship type” look, said Rick’s son Ryan.

Within a few years the architect built an art gallery next door to the restaurant, and soon put it up for sale. By then, the Klopcics had already expanded their restaurant four times, and had hosted a production by the UW-Whitewater theater department in their dining room that customers loved.

Dick and Betty bought the art gallery, converted it to a playhouse and connected it to their restaurant building by a hallway. The Fireside opened its first show, “South Pacific.”

The Fireside kept growing, and today the complex spans nearly two acres. The theater seats 652 and the restaurant can hold 800. Everything served in the dining room is made from scratch on-site, including bakery goods and ice cream.

Visitors enter the building on its Main Street, lined with four themed gift shops run by Jane Klopcic, Rick’s wife. From there they can shop at a fresh bakery stand for Fireside-made kringle, breads, muffins or pastries, or head to the bar, which offers specialty cocktails designed for each show. (The “Fiddler” special is named “Tradition.”)

Generations of family photos fill the walls. At every turn, there’s a staff member to greet Fireside visitors — a key factor in the restaurant’s repeat business, said Ryan Klopcic, 34.

“It’s obvious when you come in the Fireside that it’s all about the welcome, treating people like family,” he said. He and his father are a constant presence, shaking hands or stopping tableside.

“So many times we’ll be walking around the dining room and people will say, ‘I’ve been coming here since before you were born, Ryan.’ ”

Of Rick and Jane’s children, Ryan was the one who gravitated toward the hospitality industry. His brother Kyle is in finance and his sister Corrie is a pediatrician.

Ryan groomed himself for the job, starting on the Fireside grounds crew in high school. He attended UW-Eau Claire with his high school sweetheart, Kristi, who is now his wife and the Fireside’s human resources manager. He then earned an MBA in marketing strategy at the University of Denver. He worked in the resort industry in Colorado before returning to help take over management of the Fireside.

“I look and sound like my father and grandfather, which eases the transition,” Ryan Klopcic said.

Likewise among the Fireside staff, “there’s not much turnover,” he said.

But during the recent recession, the operation downsized from a full- and part-time staff of 300 to around 230 today, the Klopcics said. The Fireside also reduced its weekly shows from nine to seven, and replaced Friday performances with a fish fry that has drawn up to nearly 900 people a week.

The Fireside also presents a Christian concert series and offers dining-only options on weekends.

Both the restaurant and the theater “are going to be a big part of what we do in the future,” Ryan Klopcic said.

“Picking the right shows at the right time, the right menus, the gift shop product — all that has to evolve and change with the times.”