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Teatro ZinZanni – Cambria Hotel

Teatro ZinZanni premiered in summer of 2019 at the Cambria Hotel on Randolph Street in Chicago’s Loop Theatre District. My fellow reviewer Colin Douglas saw the premiere and gave it a rave review. Having shut down during the pandemic, the show is back with some old and new cast members and I am happy to add my enthusiastic recommendation to the chorus. I can safely say that the show is unlike anything else you’re likely to see, and in Chicago theater, that’s saying something.

The 14th floor of the Cambria Hotel has been converted into a huge circus tent. When you arrive, you pass a boutique and the bar, before being escorted inside the tent to your table. I don’t want to over-describe the inside of the tent, since I think part of the fun is witnessing it for yourself. Sufficed to say, you will feel transported back to something out of another time. The show is part concert, part vaudeville, part circus. The show is truly an immersive experience, taking place around and, thanks to some incredible acrobatics, above you. Dinner is included, provided under the guidance of The Goddess and the Grocer’s Debbie Sharpe.

The performers are all amazing. It’s hard to pick only one to single out for praise. Frank Ferrante plays The Caesar, the emcee of sorts for the evening. The cast also includes extremely talented singers Storm Marrero and Cunio. Co-director Joe De Paul is a very funny clown in the finest vaudeville tradition. A team of incredible dancers and acrobats round out the cast: aerialist Lea Hinz, dancer Michael Bajazet, contortionist Vita Radionova, and trapeze duo Oliver Parkinson and Cassie Cutler. The circus tent/cabaret setting allows you to see their death-defying feats up close, and believe me, it’s something you don’t want to miss.

A friend joined me to see this show and, if anything, she liked the show even more than I did. After the show, she said something about how the show was a perfect end to a particularly long week, and for some reason that comment stuck with me. It made me realize what the show was so good at: being an event. For obvious reasons, it’s probably been a while since most of us have done something big and indulgent, to have something to really look forward to. At least, we certainly don’t have enough of them. Teatro ZinZanni is the perfect remedy for that. You don’t even have to worry about figuring out dinner before the show. You arrive and turn yourself over to an extremely talented group of people, on and offstage who will take very good care of you for the evening. The show is, in the truest sense of the word, a spectacle, and one you to which you should absolutely treat yourself.

Highly Recommended

Reviewed by Kevin Curran

Presented at the Cambria Hotel, Chicago Loop-Theatre District, 32 W. Randolph St. (just west of the Nederlander Theatre), Chicago.

Tickets are available by calling 312-488-0900 or by going to www.zinzanni.com/chicago.

Additional information about this and other area productions can be found by visiting www.theatreinchicago.com.