The work starts with the artist.
Circensia builds live work from the inside out: start with the performer, then build the world around them. Kermess is where that way of working gets a permanent home.
Nothing here is background.
At Kermess, the show is only one part of the night. The tent, the table, the bar, and the people in the room all have a role to play.
From Circensia to Kermess
Circensia Entertainment Group creates performance-driven live experiences where the show, the room, the guest journey, and the operation are designed as one. Kermess is its Chicago home: a permanent room for original work, visiting talent, seasonal programming, and private formats.
The name is an invitation.
Kermess takes its cue from the Low Countries' kermis, or kermesse: a village celebration that grew from a church feast into an exuberant public fair. Food, drink, games, music, mischief, and spectacle belonged to the same gathering.
We are not recreating the past. We are carrying forward its generous idea: make a room where people come together, linger, and leave with a story.
Charlie, Nico, and the permanent night.
Charlie Maréchal and Nicolas Allard are building Kermess as more than a season of shows. The point is a Chicago house with its own behavior: the table is part of the staging, the bar is part of the pacing, and the audience is close enough to feel implicated.
Charlie, a former Lead Innovation Designer at Cirque du Soleil, leads the live-entertainment, hospitality, and guest-experience architecture. Nico, a National Circus School-trained artist and 2020 Gold Medal winner at the Festival Mondial du Cirque de Demain, brings the performance discipline, coaching, and production flow that make ambitious work land in the room.
Charlie Maréchal
Former Lead Innovation Designer at Cirque du Soleil.
Nicolas Allard
2020 Gold Medal winner, Festival Mondial du Cirque de Demain.
What we are building at 32 W Randolph.
A live room with a pulse: dinner energy without becoming a restaurant, theater craft without becoming distant, circus without becoming anonymous spectacle. Kermess is built for date nights, family rituals, company tables, birthdays, buyouts, and the kind of Chicago night people remember by atmosphere first.