It is 8 p.m. House lights dim and Dick Stanley strides onto the big stage.

"Hello everyone, and welcome to Chanhassen Dinner Theatres. How's everyone doing tonight? Good, good."

With his silky smooth and practiced delivery, Stanley charms the audience with short promos about other shows playing at the dinner theater ("Across the way, there, in the Fireside, I love the name of this one, 'Married Alive.' Huh? Isn't that good?"), a reminder about electronic devices ("no text messaging" -- pause -- "whatever that is") and a recitation of groups in attendance, and those celebrating birthdays and anniversaries -- up to 22 names.

All without notes.

After 15 years, Stanley has become an icon on par with Chanhassen's prime-rib dinners and musical productions. Many of the theater's 250,000 patrons each year assume he's the owner as he greets them in the lobby and then appears later to introduce shows on all three stages.

"It's a little bit of a show before the show," said Chanhassen artistic director Michael Brindisi. "My father has sometimes come out to see one of my shows and he'll disappoint me because he comes home and all he can talk about was how 'that Dick Stanley is really something.'"

Stanley was Brindisi's first hire. It made sense to have an ambassador welcoming theatergoers and get them off on the right foot for the evening.

"It was the smartest and most successful thing I've ever done," said Brindisi. "First impressions are so important -- the greeter, the box office, the hostess. By the time the show starts, you can either have people ready to have some fun or really screw things up."

Stanley's job is to make sure the former situation prevails. Generally it does. He's been thrown off his rhythm on occasion by a group's raucous response to being acknowledged from the stage. But only once in 15 years has he collided with a tray full of food in Chanhassen's narrow aisles.

And he learned a lesson early on about staying out of the love affairs of others. Asked to read a wedding proposal from the stage, he watched, stunned, as the prospective bride refused. When he stopped at her table at intermission, she wanted nothing to do with him, and the unrequited groom was in the bar getting drunk.

"I decided then I would never do that again," Stanley said.

Otherwise, it's been smooth sailing and Stanley has no intentions of stopping.

"These are such great people to work with," he said. "My whole social life revolves around the theater."

Methodical and traditional

Stanley, 72, is a creature of habit. He rises at 9, has coffee till 10 and gets to Fred Richards Golf in Edina by 11. He managed 73 rounds last year, e-mailing his scores to former Chanhassen actor David Anders in Arizona.

"He was ragging on me the other day," Stanley said, referring to our reluctant spring. "He said he shot an 81. I was shooting snowballs."

Promptly at 5 p.m., Stanley breezes into the dinner theater and logs onto his computer to see what groups are coming that night and who's celebrating birthdays and anniversaries. It was Anders who persuaded him to memorize the names.

"He said it would mean so much more to the audience," said Stanley. "So he helped me set up a system."

On a recent night, for instance, he wrote on his note cards, "E-F-F-G-M" for Elmwood, Fertile-Beltrami, Federated Insurance, Grand Casino Mille Lacs and Motley-Staples.

At 5:30, Stanley heads to his basement dressing room to don one of his two tuxedos, knot his bow tie and clip on his penguin cuff links. By 5:50, the dinner theater doors open and he's policing "his lobby," making sure everything is in its place. He takes his post, under the arch, hands folded in front, shoulders square, feet together at the heels. Once, a youngster was startled when Stanley made a sudden movement.

"He thought I was a statue," he said.

As people enter, Stanley steers them.

"Left to '42nd Street'," he says. "Don't go too far, though, or you'll get to 43rd Street."

It is the first of perhaps 10 to 15 times he will use that same line, always with the same inflection, the same pause and it gets the same laugh.

A Boston boy

Stanley grew up in Milton, Mass., a Boston suburb. After prep school in Maine (on a baseball scholarship), he planned to become a Catholic priest. He blinked on the day he was to enter seminary "because I like women too much" and joined the Navy. That decision launched him on an itinerant life in which he counts 72 occupations.

After watching a show that featured Celeste Holm, he caught the theater bug. He acted, directed and helped produce dinner theater in New Jersey and ended up in public relations for the Leukemia Society of America -- a great job that gave him an office in the Chrysler Building. In 1968, he moved to the Midwest to attend Northern State University in Aberdeen, S.D., where he met country music singer Sherwin Linton and became Linton's personal manager.

After a few more twists and turns, he ended up in Hopkins, where he hosted promotional TV shows. Brindisi was a guest and said that he would like to hire Stanley. He got lost in the building on his first night at Chanhassen -- understandable to anyone familiar with the labyrinthine building.

Working the rooms

By 6:45 Stanley is working the dining rooms, greeting those whose eye he catches and leaving to their dinners those who are sawing through sirloin and pork chops.

Curiously, for a man so bound to the clock, Stanley's wristwatch is an hour behind. He doesn't believe in daylight saving time. He may be dedicated to charm and friendliness, but he doesn't like to shake hands and avoids hugs. "Germs," he said. "I don't like to be touched. Very few people will I hug. Anders, Michael, that's about it." He paused and smiled. "I'll grow out of it."

On a busy night at Chanhassen, Stanley will visit five dining rooms.

"Dick is like a built-in audience survey," said Brindisi. "I talk to him all the time about what he hears, what complaints people have."

On this night, for example, the four men in booth 520 of the main room have an issue with the temperature.

"It's terribly hot," says one. "You're going to get a lot of complaints."

As if an angel had foreseen this problem and sent help, Stanley looks up and sees someone adjusting the thermostat. Crisis averted.

He greets the kids from Fertile-Beltrami at one table and discovers they're on an arts immersion weekend with a trip to the Minnesota Orchestra and Minneapolis Institute of Arts the next day.

He uses that information at the next table of kids and finds out they have 21 days of school left, which he parlays into the third table.

"Are you in the group that's going to Orchestra Hall tomorrow? I hear you have only 21 days of school left."

Committing to memory

By 7:30, Stanley is in his darkened office, checking his notes under a bank lamp on his desk. He murmurs to himself.

"Grand Casino Mille Lacs. You can bet they're having a good time." He pauses and tries a variation. "I bet they're all having a good time."

"We've got Federated Insurance here from Owatonna."

Then he starts on the names.

"Oh boy, that's a tough one," he says. "Kayla Kottschade up in 130."

He works a little longer, goes out for a cup of coffee, comes back to it.

"I'm having a hard time with Kayla Mathiowetz," he says to a visitor. "No, wait. It's Talana Mathiowetz and Kayla Kottschade. Maybe that's why I'm having a hard time."

He heads backstage, and like a recurring dream, everything is the same as it is every night.

Actor David Anthony Brinkley is sitting in his chair by the water cooler ("Mr. Dick Stanley, how are you?"). He walks behind the curtain where Conrad the stage manager runs through the final checklist.

"Microphone on?" Check.

"Zipper up?" Check.

Then it's showtime and Stanley has the audience in the palm of his hand. The groups tick off perfectly, E-F-F-G-M. The familiar jokes sound fresh and when it comes to announcing birthdays, only Kayla Kottschade's name stumps him a little. Of course, she's thrilled with the extra attention when Stanley has to consult his notes.

And then it's done.

"What a gig," he says, reflecting on his role as Chanhassen's ambassador. "I would never want to act again, it got me so nervous learning some other writer's lines. But with this job, I say what I want to say."

And what people want to hear.

Graydon Royce • 612-673-7299