Teatro ZinZanni is a circus

Circus

A circus is commonly a travelling company of performers that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, unicyclists and other stunt-oriented artists...

 dinner theater

Dinner theater

Dinner theater is a form of entertainment that combines a restaurant meal with a staged play or musical. Sometimes the play is incidental entertainment, secondary to the meal, in the style of a sophisticated night club, or the play may be a major production with dinner less important, or in some...

 that began in the neighborhood of Lower Queen Anne

Lower Queen Anne, Seattle, Washington

Lower Queen Anne is a neighborhood in Seattle, Washington, at the base of Queen Anne Hill. While its boundaries are not precise, the toponym usually refers to the shopping, office, and residential districts to the north and west of Seattle Center. The districts to the west of the Center are also...

 in Seattle, Washington

Seattle, Washington

Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...

. It has since expanded to a site on the waterfront at Pier 29 on the San Francisco, California

San Francisco, California

San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...

 The Embarcadero

The Embarcadero (San Francisco)

The Embarcadero is the eastern waterfront and roadway of the Port of San Francisco, San Francisco, California, along San Francisco Bay, constructed atop an engineered seawall on reclaimed land, and derives its name from the Spanish verb embarcar, meaning "to embark"...

.

Teatro ZinZanni was created by Norman Langill, and was once described as "the Moulin Rouge

Moulin Rouge

Moulin Rouge is a cabaret built in 1889 by Joseph Oller, who also owned the Paris Olympia. Close to Montmartre in the Paris district of Pigalle on Boulevard de Clichy in the 18th arrondissement, it is marked by the red windmill on its roof. The closest métro station is Blanche.The Moulin Rouge is...

 meets Cirque du Soleil

Cirque du Soleil

Cirque du Soleil , is a Canadian entertainment company, self-described as a "dramatic mix of circus arts and street entertainment." Based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and located in the inner-city area of Saint-Michel, it was founded in Baie-Saint-Paul in 1984 by two former street performers, Guy...

." The show is a blend of European cabaret

Cabaret

Cabaret is a form, or place, of entertainment featuring comedy, song, dance, and theatre, distinguished mainly by the performance venue: a restaurant or nightclub with a stage for performances and the audience sitting at tables watching the performance, as introduced by a master of ceremonies or...

, circus

Circus

A circus is commonly a travelling company of performers that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, unicyclists and other stunt-oriented artists...

 arts, restaurant, and vaudeville

Vaudeville

Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...

 performed in a Belgian

Belgium

Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

 spiegeltent

Spiegeltent

A Spiegeltent is a large travelling tent, constructed in wood and canvas and decorated with mirrors and stained glass, intended as an entertainment venue...

(mirror tent). Until mid-2011 the show was produced by the Seattle based non-profit

Non-profit organization

Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...

 performing arts company, One Reel. Teatro Zinzanni is now its own non-profit.

Teatro ZinZanni began in Seattle in 1998 and moved its operation to San Francisco, opening there in March 2000. In 2002, it re-opened a permanent operation in Seattle's Belltown district

Belltown, Seattle, Washington

Belltown is a neighborhood in Seattle, Washington, United States, in the 98121 Zip Code, located on the city's downtown waterfront, on land that was artificially flattened as part of a regrading project...

. The operation has since moved to Mercer street near the Space Needle.

The many performers in Teatro ZinZanni productions have included Joan Baez

Joan Baez

Joan Chandos Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician and a prominent activist in the fields of human rights, peace and environmental justice....

,
Yamil Borges, Martha Davis of the rock group The Motels

The Motels

The Motels are a New Wave music band from the Los Angeles area best known for "Only the Lonely" and "Suddenly Last Summer", each of which peaked at number nine on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1982 and 1983, respectively. Their song "Total Control" reached #4 on the Australian charts in 1980...

,
El Vez

El Vez

El Vez is the stage name of Robert Lopez, a Mexican-American rock and roll artist, who performs and records original material and covers classic rock songs...

,
Frank Ferrante

Frank Ferrante

Frank Ferrante is an American stage actor, comedian and director known for his stage portrayals of legendary American comedian Groucho Marx in the Arthur Marx/Robert Fisher play Groucho: A Life in Revue and his own touring An Evening With Groucho.-Biography:Born in Los Angeles, California, Frank...

,
Geoff Hoyle

Geoff Hoyle

Geoff Hoyle is a British performer who originated the role of Zazu in the Broadway theatre production of The Lion King. Hoyle has also performed in vaudeville shows, worked with Bill Irwin in "The Pickle Family Circus", performed with Cirque Du Soleil's Nouvelle Expérience, and performed with the...

,
Sally Kellerman

Sally Kellerman

Sally Clare Kellerman is an American actress and singer known for her role as Major Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan in the film MASH , for which she was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role.-Early life:...

,
Liliane Montevecchi

Liliane Montevecchi

Liliane Montevecchi is a French actress, dancer, and singer.Montevecchi began her career as a prima ballerina in Roland Petit's dance company...

,
Maria Muldaur

Maria Muldaur

Maria Muldaur is a folk-blues singer who was part of the American folk music revival in the early 1960s...

,
Melanie Stace,
and Ann Wilson

Ann Wilson

Ann Dustin Wilson is an American musician, best known as the lead singer, flute player, songwriter, and occasional guitar player of the rock band Heart.-Personal life:...

 of the rock group Heart

Heart (band)

Heart is an American rock band who first found success in Canada. Throughout several lineup changes, the only two members remaining constant are sisters Ann and Nancy Wilson. The group rose to fame in the 1970s with their music being influenced by hard rock as well as folk music...

.

Teatro ZinZanni has produced two CDs: The Divas, with Baez, Montevecchi, Kellerman, Thelma Houston

Thelma Houston

Thelma Houston is an American singer-songwriter and actress. She scored a number-one hit in 1976 with her cover version of the song "Don't Leave Me This Way", which won the 1978 Grammy Award for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance.-Early life & career:Houston is the daughter of a cotton picking mother...

and others, and Omnium, a collaboration of TZ Maestro Norm Durkee with Martha Davis.

External links

• One Reel website.