Holiday Production Brings Comedy, Magic, Music, and Circus Acts to the Santa Barbara Granada

If you like your holiday entertainment full of music and magic, with a splash of sass and a dollop of derring-do, then A Magical Cirque Christmas might just be the ticket for you. 

I caught up with award-winning comedy entertainer and magician, actress, circus performer, and Guinness Book of World Records winner for the “longest time to hold fire torch in teeth” Carisa Hendrix on the phone last week (she was in rehearsals in Columbus, Georgia; I was in my slippers in my son’s old bedroom) as they were prepping the production to head out on the road for an intense holiday touring schedule that includes a one-night stop at The Granada Theatre on Monday, November 28. 

“A show like this has so many moving parts. We just need to squeeze every second we can before we get to the room to perform,” said Hendrix, who stars as the beloved character Lucy Darling, whom critics have described as “part Barbara Stanwyck, part Lady Gaga, and part Mad Men’s Joan Holloway,”  and “a joyful blend of magic, comedy, and cocktails.” 

Just two minutes on the phone with Hendrix (who switches nimbly back and forth between her own voice and Ms. Darling’s Mae West–inspired transatlantic accent) and I know that A Magical Cirque Christmas is not going to be your typical milquetoast holiday fare. Darling is the host of the show, but she’s also a character in a fairy tale that involves an adventure with a Guardian of Time, who manages the changing of the seasons and finds himself less than thrilled to face the countdown to the 2022 holidays.

“We get to experience a ’70s Christmas; we do a 1920s Christmas; we do an old Victorian Christmas. … This gave us an opportunity to run through different aesthetics, and to be nostalgic, and to do music from different eras, and to just explore Christmas in a whole different way,” said Hendrix, who initially developed the show as an online holiday offering during the pandemic, along with her fellow Cirque stars, who were also isolating themselves and itching to perform. 

“That holiday special we did was what [producers] MagicSpace Entertainment saw that caused them to go, ‘Oh, we should bring her onto this holiday show,’” said Hendrix, still giddy about her good fortune. “It’s amazing that a company like MagicSpace would let us make something so ambitious!”

In addition to Hendrix’s magical feats, which include illusion, levitation, and a bubble act, there is also Rolla Bolla performer and unicyclist Jonathan Rinny, juggler Christopher Stoinev, and foot-juggling duo Ray Rodriguez Lara and Henry D’Boyd Collado Green, as well as Lyra hoop aerial acrobats, a high-flying foot-juggling duo, a breathtaking aerial straps pair, a contortion flying streetlamp act, and much more.

“One of the things I’m most proud of with our show is that there’s so much for the kids. It’s obviously for them, but if you took a date, at no point would you feel like you took your date to a kid show,” said Hendrix. “It’s very classy and well-considered and artistic — very Broadway — but there’s nothing over the kids’ heads.”

A Magical Cirque Christmas performs at The Granada Theatre (1214 State St.) See granadasb.org.

Support the Santa Barbara Independent through a long-term or a single contribution.