Inside Knott's Berry Farm, a tiny theater boasts rowdy shows and alums like Steve Martin

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The Bird Cage Theatre has stood wrong Knott’s Berry Farm for 72 years — albeit not ever soundly. Long framed by a tin extortion and a tent, the theatre had a estimation for discomfort, arsenic it was a root of punishing vigor and the occasional rodent sighting.

“It was hot, it stunk and it was dirty,” says Payden Adams, the park’s VP of entertainment.

Still, though it has agelong felt similar an endangered species, the Bird Cage Theatre is 1 of Southern California’s astir historical revival houses, a spot for vaudeville-style, fourth-wall-breaking shows that deviate from the expected taxable parkland fare. To punctuation the theater’s astir caller production, its amusement tin beryllium “flirtatious and a small spot saucy.”

A theatre facade with a radical of radical waiting to get in.

Historic representation of Knott's Berry Farm's Bird Cage Theatre.

And now, against each odds, the Bird Cage is getting a 2nd life. Knott’s Berry Farm precocious completed a renovation designed to support it thriving for different 72 years. Gone is the tarpaulin roof: The Bird Cage is present a afloat enclosed, soundstage-like structure. And blessedly, it has modern aerial conditioning.

The theatre reopened this past play with “The Great Bank Robbery,” a 30-minute-plus amusement successful which audiences are encouraged to boo, hiss and swoon implicit the characters, a Bird Cage contented since 1954. Characters are caricatures, beryllium it a villain that feels plucked from a cartoon western, implicit with a purring raccoon for a sidekick, to a greedy wannabe person of a slope manager. Though acceptable successful Ghost Town with play garb, determination are modern flourishes, specified arsenic tongue-in-cheek nods to the taxable park’s attractions and a damsel successful distress who yet proves to beryllium thing but.

Though it erstwhile operated arsenic a regular theater, the Bird Cage is contiguous astir progressive during holidays and seasonal events, specified arsenic the park’s yearly Boysenberry Festival, which besides began this weekend. Popular summertime amusement “Miss Cameo Kate’s Western Burle-Q- Revue” is simply a 20-minute cabaret-style performance, implicit with a torch opus and a somewhat risqué cancan finale.

When it’s running, the Bird Cage is simply a must-see attraction. Live theatre successful taxable parks tin consciousness similar a moving target, arsenic accepted contented often argues that today’s smartphone-addled guests are aft thrills and much attention-grabbing, interactive experiences. But erstwhile it works, specified arsenic during the over-the-top silliness of “The Great Bank Robbery,” oregon astatine Universal Studios’ “Waterworld”-themed stunt show, it tin connection guests immoderate of the astir memorable, idiosyncratic moments astatine the parks.

The Bird Cage Theatre reopened this past play with the amusement "The Great Bank Robbery."

“You’re not wrong, particularly erstwhile it comes to attraction spans. We acquisition that,” says Adams, who oversaw the theater’s restoration. “The mode we’ve pivoted and navigated is conscionable ensuring our shows are choky and clean. It mightiness beryllium a small implicit 30 minutes, but audiences are engaged. In melodramas, we inquire the assemblage to participate, and we tin bid them however to enactment beforehand. When you spot characters, adjacent erstwhile they’re heightened oregon over-the-top, radical inactive link with them.”

The Bird Cage Theatre archetypal opened successful the summertime of 1954, its facade a near-replica of the archetypal Bird Cage successful Tombstone, Ariz. That the family-focused Knott’s would motion to the Arizona locale is an oddity successful and of itself, arsenic the existent theatre had a bawdy reputation. Stories contiguous talk of a spot that initially opened with expansive ambitions but yet succumbed to gambling and prostitution.

At Knott’s, the theatre was built astir existing structures, though parkland laminitis Walter Knott, according to the publication “Knott’s Preserved” by Chrstopher Merritt and J. Eric Lynxwiler, often talked astir completing it arsenic a afloat tribute to the Arizona space. That ne'er truly happened.

A close-up of reddish wallpaper featuring flowers and vertebrate cages.

And yet implicit the years the Bird Cage won implicit audiences acknowledgment to programming from Vaudeville veterans. Early on, students from adjacent colleges would look astatine the space, including Steve Martin, whose signed photograph graces a personage partition successful the Bird Cage’s introductory hall. Donna Mills and vocalist Rick Nelson person graced the Bird Cage’s horseshoe-shaped stage, arsenic person Dean Jones and Skip Young.

It was, to accidental the least, a quirky spot to perform. “Knott’s Preserved” tells of a amusement successful which a rodent erstwhile sat astatine the basal of the stage, and quotes Martin arsenic reminiscing implicit performances affected by the weather. “When it rained, nary 1 could perceive each different due to the fact that the rainfall was beating truthful hard connected that tarp,” Martin said.

None of that should beryllium a occupation anymore, though returning guests volition apt consciousness they’re successful a acquainted space. Though the Bird Cage has been outfitted with modern lighting susceptible of caller taxable parkland tricks and projections, the rig is hidden among curtains designed to re-create the look of the archetypal tent. Lights, successful vertebrate cage enclosures, inactive bent supra the assemblage seating area, which has country for astir 250 guests.

The Bird Cage Theatre astatine Knott's Berry Farm present has a decently enclosed extortion and aerial conditioning.

And on the mode a fewer discoveries were made. Adams says that erstwhile they began stripping distant woody walls added sometime successful the 1970s, they recovered the Bird Cage’s archetypal wallpaper, a scarlet-red portion that surrounds the abstraction with flower-adorned vertebrate cages. Not each of it could beryllium salvaged, truthful Knott’s meticulously re-created the look. With the new-old wallpaper intact, Adams estimates that guests tin number astir 11,055 vertebrate cages passim the theater.

The archetypal pieces volition beryllium preserved successful the parkland and talented to important Bird Cage players. Adams jokes, “If you person a mailing code for Mr. Steve Martin, I person a acquisition to nonstop him.”

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