Credit: photo by Seth Kubersky

Back in the mid-1990s, before Universal and Disney both ballooned into the vacation-devouring behemoths they are today, a number of independent dinner theaters managed to survive in the shadow of the big resorts. One-time staples of the 192 and I-Drive tourist corridors such as King Henry’s Feast, Arabian Nights, Wild Bill’s Wild West Dinner Show and MurderWatch Mystery Theatre are now all merely faded memories.

But for more than 25 years, Pirates Dinner Adventure has managed to not only endure — along with a handful of its contemporaries, like Medieval Times, Capone’s and Sleuths Mystery Dinner Show — but also expand, adding the Teatro Martini Vaudeville Variety Revue (previously Treasure Tavern), a Country Nights Live barbecue dinner show and the Jewel speakeasy piano bar.

Throughout the years, the Carrier Drive complex’s pirate-themed stunt show — which was originally framed as a soundstage film shoot at “Colossal Studios” — has overcome considerable hurricane damage and gone through countless updates, such as the addition of an animatronic sea serpent. Now, ahead of their tricennial anniversary in 2026, Pirates has turned to original show writer-director Michael La Fleur to helm “In Search of Neptune’s Treasure,” their all-new flagship production, which debuted at the end of May.

The basic elements that have made Pirates popular are all still intact — a cast of color-coded buccaneers aboard an impressive galleon set perform high-flying acrobatics and swashbuckling swordplay, while guests chow down on wedding-banquet chicken — but now there’s a new Broadway-style musical score, along with the refreshed stunts and script. The result is a show that still has plenty of action to please the youngsters, who are invited to participate in the piratical competitions, while adding more theatrical depth that appeals to their older siblings and parents.

I sat down during the grand opening gala with La Fleur, the creative director of Pirates Dinner Adventure, to hear how he and his team are keeping the ship sailing into its fourth decade. During his globe-spanning career, La Fleur has worked with Celine Dion, Sarah Brightman and Cirque du Soleil’s Franco Dragone, as well as most of the major theme park players, but it all began with Burt.

“I worked at Burt Reynolds’ dinner theater in Jupiter for many, many years,” he recalls. “I’ve always been drawn to entertainment and the stage. I was a performer — singer, actor, dancer — my whole life, and when I was working for Burt Reynolds around my early 30s, he pulled me aside and said, ‘Kid, you’re a director.’ ‘And I was like, ‘No, no, no.’ ‘Yes, you are!’ And he gave me a show, so my first professional directing job was pinch-hitting for Burt Reynolds.”

Early on, the Spanish brothers who owned Pirates (as well as the long-gone Terror on Church Street) brought in La Fleur to take over a show that had “a lot of elements, but it was missing a through-line.” La Fleur says he worked with the cast to create relatable characters with backstories.

“What I wanted to do is take a movie-going experience and the theater experience and try to fuse them together. We tried to create what I like to call a living cinematic immersive experience, like watching a grand epic movie on the screen, but it’s live in front of you.”

For this new version, La Fleur says his focus was on crafting a show with cross-generational appeal, so that “it’s not just pirates fighting each other all night long.” The love story and singing (including a couple of original songs and traditional tunes) should satiate the less bloodthirsty audience members, but holding the attention of a new generation raised on screens is another matter.

“We went from the amphitheater of Greece to the theater, to the movie screen to the TV screen, and now the computer screen to the phone. So all the audiences have now stopped looking out, and now they look down,” he observes. “We’re finding that people really want to be the show, not necessarily watch the show.” Accordingly, the new production surrounds patrons in the percussive action with “a lot of loud noises, a lot of fighting, a lot of gunshots and cannon fire … to pull their eyes back up.”

With Universal and Disney both budgeting billions for additional attractions in the coming decade, I fear for Pirates and the other off-property attractions that are vying for an ever-smaller slice of the pie, but La Fleur remains optimistic about the future.

“We’ve heard the gloom and doom stories since I was performing with Disney — back when the paint was wet on the castle — that everything was going to come to an end,” he says. “After the parks, sometimes [visitors] just want to get away and do something in a party environment; they want to see something unique. What we offer here at Pirate’s Dinner Adventure is a unique experience. We’ve been here for 30 years through all the naysayers, and I believe we’re here for another 30.”


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This article appears in Jun 12-18, 2024.