Fri 10/18 @ 8PM
For quite a few years, northeast Ohio-based guitar virtuoso Neil Zaza put on a holiday-themed show called One Silent Night, drawing on musicians he knew to present rocked-up versions off holiday classics. At the same time he was building international career as an instrumental guitar star, touring Europe, Asia and the U.S. numerous times.
Then in 2018, he came up with an even more spectacular idea: he created a Halloween-themed show called One Dark Night… A Rock Symphony of the Macabre, that combines familiar classical music, rock standards, dance, theater, horror film and news clips, projections and a seasonally appropriate story line about — monsters.
He’s now performed it every year since 2018 (except the pandemic year!) honing the original concept into an event more riveting presentation. Ohio Contemporary Ballet (formerly Verb Ballets), which has been a part of the shows for several years, performs choreography by Antonio Morillo to augment the musical and visual theme of evil and where our monsters come from. Last year’s version at the MGM Grand featured enhanced production values.
“Every year I change it,” says Zaza. “It’s truly a work in progress. This year, we changed some members out. We have three new female singers. One is Erin Donovan from LoConti. Then we have Margo Tippingt; she’s from theater and she fits perfectly. Then there’s Angelina Evanoff.
This year he’s also got Connor Bogart O’Brien who brings both acting and singing skills to the stage.
“The thing that works in this show is he has no problem shifting into a character,” says Zaza. “We do a version of ‘Madmen Across the Water,’ where they wheel him out in a wheelchair and straitjacket, he’s struggling. He can act the part. He’s not scared to get in touch with this.”
He’s also tightened up the narrative that ties the production together.
“There’s an arc to the story that we’ve been refining over the course of the years,” he says. “It’s not just a brainless show, like, let’s play Godzilla and Frankenstein. We all love these universal monsters, but why do we love them so much, why do we love Halloween? The point is the monster is inside of us when we look in the mirror. We’re trying to take people on the journey. As we get into the third quarter of the show, we have to show the evil of men.”
This year for the first time, One Dark Night will be playing in two markets: in Northeast Ohio at the Agora on Friday October 18, and the following night at Detroit’s Masonic Cathedral Theater, the first step to possible wider touring in future years.
“The game plan next year is 10 markets in realistic 800-1000 seat theaters and built it up from the ground up, not top down,” says Zaza. And perhaps creating a holiday classic.
Get tickets here.
Cleveland, OH 44103