The westward expansion around the time of the California Gold Rush saw a gaggle of pioneers moving out west to seek a better life, but the most infamous of these is the Donner Party.

In late October 1846 a series of heavy snowstorms left the group of eighty seven adults and children stranded. The exhausted and desperate group resorted to eating mice and their own dogs before the unthinkable, cannibalizing their own dead.

DeCarlo’s “Donner Dinner Party” opened in the spring of 1963 and survived for only four performances at the Royale Theater.

Brooks Atkinson of the New York Times, said “Donner Dinner Party is tasteless. When I say tasteless, I mean without flavor. Sweet, sour, salty, putrid or otherwise. This show in search of an identity has all the saliva-stirring properties of week-old pre-chewed gum.”