Amy Adams and more stars celebrate Chanhassen Dinner's Michael Brindisi ahead of his memorial

Hollywood star Amy Adams remembers the period when her life changed unexpectedly and for the better.

Director Michael Brindisi, who had seen her perform while working at a Colorado dinner theater, plucked her to replace an injured dancer in "Crazy for You" at his Minnesota company, Chanhassen Dinner Theatres.

Adams would spend four seasons, starting in 1996, at the suburban playhouse on an upward trajectory that resulted in stardom in such films as "Doubt," "Junebug," "The Fighter," "American Hustle," "The Master" and "Man of Steel," where she played Lois Lane.

Pointing to Brindisi's artistic guidance and support, Adams said in a phone interview from Japan that he and the theater gave her something more lasting than the training and discipline that she still calls on today.

"The kind of community the theater provided at that time in my life really gave me the courage to step forward," Adams said. "When I moved to Los Angeles to start auditioning [for film roles], I always felt like I had a place to go home to. Chanhassen was my home and that meant the world to me."

As the theater gets ready for its celebration Monday of Brindisi, its late artistic director and co-owner who died Feb. 5 of heart failure, star alums have been reflecting on how the Philadelphia native, who ran the company for 37 years, impacted their lives.

In 2006, Brindisi cast Laura Osnes, the Eagan High School grad who had also trained at the Children's Theatre Company, as Sandy in "Grease," a show that had special meaning for him. He often said that it saved his career and life.

"Grease" was similarly life-changing for Osnes, who would leave the Chanhassen production and then go on to win the lead role as Sandy on Broadway via a reality TV competition.

"I can't say enough about Michael because he played such a pivotal role in my trajectory," Osnes said. "I was in the fifth or sixth month of my eight-month contract when he gave me the green light to fly to L.A. and audition for 'Grease.'"

She recalled that the whole audition process made her incredibly nervous but Brindisi provided unqualified reassurance.

"He said, 'You're gonna win,'" Osnes said. "He could see things in you that you might not even see in yourself. And he helped make my Broadway dreams come true."

Another Chanhassen "Grease" headliner that Brindisi cast has also gone on to big things. Caroline Innerbichler would star in the Broadway tour of "Frozen" and also originate a lead role on Broadway in "Shucked the Musical."

Innerbichler, also an Eagan High School grad who briefly trained in the Guthrie Theater/University of Minnesota BFA program, said that she'd been trying repeatedly to get into Chanhassen before Brindisi finally tapped her in 2012 for "Bye Bye Birdie."

Innerbichler would go on to play the lead in "The Little Mermaid" among a battery of roles at the dinner theater.

Brindisi was not only a strong artistic leader but because of the community he fostered and the role that Chanhassen plays, being in the company changed her world.

"It was one the biggest meal tickets for theater where you get health insurance and Equity [union] points," Innerbichler said. "For me, I had left school and at 25 it allowed me to be a performer who didn't have to wait tables. I could get a one-bedroom apartment and feed my dog as a grown-up."

Like others, Innerbichler was guided, perhaps even mentored, by Tony Vierling, whom she had met on the national tour of "A Prairie Home Companion" and who has the distinction of being directed by Brindisi perhaps more than any other performer — over 50 productions.

Vierling first met Brindisi at Iowa State University when he came in as a guest speaker and director.

"He was like a Dustin Hoffman or Al Pacino with all this passion and energy," Vierling said. "I was impressed by his belief that this work and craft could take you anywhere and that you can do anything with it."

Vierling would meet and marry his husband because of Brindisi, who invited Michael Gruber into the company, luring him from a Broadway career.

"It's pretty amazing how he got the ball rolling for me in the second half of my life," Gruber said, recounting a dinner at Rosie O'Grady's in New York, and his eventual first role in "Easter Parade," which was developed at Chanhassen in 2007.

"He said, 'Do you think you want to come out and do it?' It was a total leap of faith, and I don't want to get too mystical about it, but it was something out of the stars," Gruber continued.

He met Vierling in that cast, and the pair echo something that all those who have worked at Chanhassen under Brindisi stress. It's a theater family that fosters tight-knit community, and that allows artists to develop their skills in a supportive artistic hothouse.

Adams said that she still counts people from her Chanhassen days, including Vierling and resident choreographer co-owner Tamara Kangas Erickson, as friends. And that's all a tribute to the environment that Brindisi created and fostered.

"I'm just deeply grateful," Adams said.

Michael Brindisi's memorial

When: 2 p.m. Monday with an open house to follow from 3:30-6 p.m.

Where: Chanhassen Dinner Theatres, 501 W. 78th St., Chanhassen.