Foreign Key Constraint incorrectly formed - Laravel - php

Question

I have two tables "theaters" and "cubelists". The "theaters" table is already created. In the "cubelists" table,I have made "area" and "stn" as foreign keys to the table "theaters". But I get an error the foreign key constraint is incorrectly formed. But I couldn't figure out the error.
Schema::create('theaters', function (Blueprint $table) {
$table->string('theater_name');
$table->string('area_name');
$table->string('station');
$table->primary(array('theater_name','area_name','station'));
$table->text('address');
$table->bigInteger('phno');
$table->string('contact_person');
});
Schema::create('cubelists', function (Blueprint $table) {
$table->string('mvie_name');
$table->foreign('mvie_name')->references('movie_name')->on('movies');
$table->string('thtr_name');
$table->foreign('thtr_name')->references('theater_name')-
>on('theaters');
$table->string('area');
$table->foreign('area')->references('area_name')->on('theaters');
$table->string('stn');
$table->foreign('stn')->references('station')->on('theaters');
$table->primary(array('mvie_name','thtr_name','area','stn'));
$table->string('type');
$table->string('subtype');
$table->date('validity');
$table->string('show');
});
Error is
C:\xampp\htdocs\boras>php artisan migrate
Migration table created successfully.
[Illuminate\Database\QueryException]
SQLSTATE[HY000]: General error: 1005 Can't create table `boras_cachii`.`#sql-a10_
5a` (errno: 150 "Foreign key constraint is incorrectly formed") (SQL: alter table
`cubelists` add constraint cubelists_area_foreign foreign key (`area`) reference
s `theaters` (`area_name`))
[PDOException]
SQLSTATE[HY000]: General error: 1005 Can't create table `boras_cachii`.`#sql-a10_
5a` (errno: 150 "Foreign key constraint is incorrectly formed")

Answer 1

A foreign key constraint should reference a candidate key. I don't know what cubelist means, but you probably want to reference the primary key in "theaters". That is, you probably want one foreign key constraint to reference the three columns theater_name, area_name, and station. Not individual constraints on each of those columns.
MySQL might or might not let you get away with what you originally tried to do, but don't do that anyway. Search 13.1.17.6 Using FOREIGN KEY Constraints for "does not enforce".