La Comedia Dinner Theatre — Attraction in Springboro

I took my wife to La Comedia tonight for a date night since our kids are older now and we got some time back to enjoy each other's company. We quickly learned that was not a welcome place for people of color. The doors opened at 5:30pm for dinner then the show started at 7:30pm. We arrived at 6:45pm at their box office and asked if we could still get dinner since we were a little late. The host did not answer the question and immediately started defending the price of the tickets. I had to tell him that price was not a factor but that I was hungry and it was important for me to have dinner before buying a ticket. It was not problem if we missed dinner but I would have went elsewhere for dinner. The host then tells me "well if we keep hee-in and hawin" you will miss out". I had to remind him that since he did not answer the question about dinner, that was causing. a delay in our ticket purchase. I gave him my credit card and bought two tickets. This was very awkward due to the unprofessional attitude of the box office staff member. I should have read the tea leaves at this point. Anyway, my wife and I were escorted to our seats where we were served by a server named Elizabeth. We ended up ordering two glasses of wine then changed the order to the featured cocktails they were promoting for this particular show. Elizabeth asked if we still wanted the wine and we told her that we did not want the wine because we wanted to check out the featured drinks first. If there were too strong we did not want to have the wine also. She mentioned that there was an intermission and she would not be able to serve us anything until then. That worked for us. Well, the featured cocktails were not very strong so at intermission, we asked Elizabeth if we could have the wine. OMG! She went off on us in an extremely unprofessional way and threw a tantrum and said she neede to pre-order the wine. She was so out of order that other guests were also surprised and taken aback by her attitude towards our willingness to spend more money at the venue. She then ignored the request for wine and brought our bill which was fine with us because we did not want to experience any additional interactions with their staff. Elizabeth collected payment from all patrons in her section but never came back to our table to get my credit card. My wife and I always pay our bills so after the show we went to find a manager to pay our bill. Upon walking towards the kitchen area where the manager was working, I saw Elizabeth go straight to the manager and told her that we skipped out on our bill! Busted. She was trying to set us up and did not notice that I was standing right there with my bill and credit card! Of course chimed to her surprise and let her and the manager know that I was there to hunt down someone to pay my bill because our server (Elizabeth) never came back to take our payment. Again, she was trying to set us up and portray us in a certain kind of way. This was our first time ever going there so we did not know about any rules about pre-ordering drinks before intermisison and Elizabeth neglected to share that information. My wife and I thought we would simply order the wine at intermission if we wanted it. After all, how hard is it to pour two glasses of wine right! Additionally, I guarantee that the owners are in business to make a profit and appreciate their patrons buyuing tickets and making additional purchases. The manager seemed to side with Elizabeth at first then after she heard our side of the story while I paid my bill, she understood the challenge we faced with dealing with Elizabeth as our server. We appeared to be the only people of color in the building and experienced such bad service upon entering the building. Beware of this establishment if you are people of color. They were rude and sent the message that we were...

This was my 3rd visit to LaComedia and I have always enjoyed the performances. The food is as good and in the past the service has been very good.

This past Saturday four of us went to see White Christmas. We arrived and were seated well in advance of the dinner service so that we could enjoy a drink and our salad before going to the buffet line.

Our server promptly got our drink order and told us our salads would be out shortly. We also advised him that my sister was disabled and needed someone to go through the buffet line for her. We have done this before and they bring a paper menu so she can make her selections and a staff member can go through the buffet line with the rest of our table to get her food for her.

Upon returning with our drinks 15 minutes later we reminded him that we had not yet received our salads and we still didn't have the paper menu for my sister to fill out. He did finally bring the menu but still no salads in sight even though other tables around us (who came in after us) received their salads.

About 20 minutes later someone came by to tell our table it was our turn to go to the buffet and we commented that we were still waiting for salads. His remark was "I will let them know".

Upon returning from the buffet we STILL did not have salads and no one had picked up my sister's menu which meant we all had our meals except her. I took her menu and went through the buffet line for her.

Our server showed up when we were 1/4 of the way through our meals to pick up my sister's order and was surprised to see that she already had food. We again commented that we never got salads.

Other people at our table had an issue with their tickets so the manager came over to talk with them. While he was there they pointed out the issues we were having which he never acknowledged or inquired about. After resolving their issue he promptly left without talking to us or asking what he could do to remedy the problem.

Overall I would give the performances 5 stars and the food 4 stars but the customer service (from the manager down to the server) gets no stars.

At $75 per person I expect far better service and a complete meal.

I reached out to LaComedia after our visit to let them know about the poor service we received. I received a very nice letter in response letting me know the situation would be addressed because they strive to offer the best...

My husband and I have attended La Comedia productions for several years now and have generally been satisfied so this year we purchased a season ticket. The food is always good. The production of The Music Man was wonderful! However, our experience at Beauty and the Beast was not good. We took four young grandchildren with us. We arrived right on time but waited in line out in the hot sun for 45 minutes before we got into the building. After we were seated we waited another half an hour to get our salads even though people around us who had come in later got their salads before us. Then there was a long wait for the food. One of our granddaughters fell asleep waiting and the other three were losing their enthusiasm for the experience. It was a long show and started over a half and hour late. It was 11 p.m. before the show was over--much too late for young children. There was some weak acting in some of the major roles but what bothered us the most was that in the "Be our guest" scene the women who represented the dishes wore very low-cut, immodest dresses and the women who played the part of the napkins had high-topped dresses but not proper support. Our grandchildren all expressed how immodest the dancers were afterward. This was a play geared for children, why couldn't the costumes have been non-offensive? Lastly, one of the main reasons we bought season tickets was because we wanted to also see "West Side Story." We were very disappointed when La Comedia cancelled it and substituted a play we are not interested in. I contacted the manager and asked if there was some compensation, like maybe a gift certificate to a show of our choice in the next season that we could substitute for the play we don't care about. Or at least a discount on a future show? The play that was substituted was not equivalent to West Side Story. But I received a curt reply telling me most people are happy with the substitution and there will be no compensation. Doesn't make me feel very valued as a long time patron. I'm giving the theater 3 stars only because in the past we have had some very good experiences here and The Music Man was great. If I was evaluating only based on our Beauty and Beast experience it...