'An unforgettable evening.' Teatro ZinZanni celebrates 25 years in Seattle with a nod to its past...

Teatro ZinZanni, a landmark cabaret and comedy show, known for its famous circus tent, is set to return for a second run of post-pandemic performances. And this time, in celebration of Teatro's 25th anniversary, they are bringing back a crucial element of what made them Seattle favorites more than two decades ago.

In 1998, Teatro’s founder, Norm Langill, who also founded Seattle's arts group One Reel back in 1972, purchased Teatro ZinZanni’s trademark tent.

“We found the tent in Barcelona when we were commissioned for a musical to be part of the Olympics in Barcelona,” Langill said. “Somebody took me to see the spiegeltent, which was on Las Ramblas, the famous tourist street, and I went in and I was transformed.”

Langill discovered the mystique of the tent. Even before the performers entered, he recalled the audience being on their feet and the feeling that everyone under the tent was part of the show. The unique characteristic of this type of tent, besides being 29 feet tall, are the mirrored walls on the interior. The performances inside take place all around the audience, and because of the mirrors, audiences see the performance happening in every direction they look.

The spiegaltent owned by Teatro, which Langill purchased from a family in Belgium who had been crafting the tents for five generations, is 65 feet in diameter and has room for about 300 people inside. Langill said people felt like they were transported into another world when they entered it. The tent itself first appeared in Seattle on Mercer Street, near the Seattle Center, back in 1998.

Teatro remained under the tent, even after moving away from the Mercer Street location, until 2020 when the show was postponed for the pandemic. The tent was packed up and moved to Granite Falls, Washington, for storage and has not been seen in Seattle since. Until now.