Theatre Bizarre. For years the name was like a secret password for those in the know. For the cognoscenti of Detroit, the words evoked a fire-lit carnival fantasy world that, Brigadoon-like, appeared for one night a year the weekend before Halloween — and then went dark until its next conjuring.
It was an underground thing. The fantastical masquerade party wasn’t advertised; you just had to know that tickets would be on sale at Detroit’s Dally in the Alley street fair and a handful of retail stores. Each of the ten years it’s been reappearing — technically eight, since there was a two-year hiatus and this is its fourth year back on track — it’s gotten bigger, growing from 2,200 tickets sold last year to 2,700 this year that sold out in two days.
Sounds like a success story — except this was the year Theatre Bizarre almost didn’t happen. The day before the event Detroit city officials shut the venue down…
THE GREATEST MASQUERADE ON EARTH