MOONRISE: A Theatrical Dinner Experience at Paradise Club

MoonRise is an immersive dinner show built from contemporary circus. It is neither a musical nor a play. Over the evening you see aerial acts, acrobatics, dance and visual poetry, with vocals and storytelling on the soundtrack. Aerial work sits at the center, and the whole program is framed as a sensory ritual about balance.

The setting is a world inspired by ancient moon goddesses, and the show pays tribute to 13 of them. Instead of watching from a row of theater seats, guests sit at communal tables, and professional dancers, acrobats and an ensemble perform in the middle of the room, right around and between those tables. Guests are not brought up on stage, but the performers work close to the tables.

The show was conceived by Lara Jacobs Rigolo with Rigolo Swiss Nouveau Cirque. It is presented by The Times Square EDITION hotel in its Paradise Club, a nightlife and cabaret venue on the hotel's 7th floor. This is a returning production, not a premiere: the Paradise Club version has played there in several seasons since June 2024, and the autumn 2026 dates are its latest run.

The performance runs as three acts of about 20 minutes each, separated by two intermissions. Each act combines aerial artistry, acrobatics and dance with vocals and visual poetry. Because the performers move through the audience, much of the action happens at table level rather than only on the stage.

Paradise Club is a room of about 5,760 square feet with a 15-foot ceiling. The 31-foot main stage uses modular platforms and has an extendable circular catwalk, and a motorized rigging grid completes the setup. Maximum occupancy is 419, and seating is communal throughout.

Food and drink are part of the design. The show is paired with dishes and craft cocktails created to match it. In 2024, each cocktail was themed on one of the moon goddesses. For the 2026 run, the club talks about small plates curated by a chef and a new a la carte menu, and the dinner option is a selection of signature dishes and small bites that guests combine themselves. A pre-show cocktail hour with entertainment runs from 8:00 to 9:00 PM, and dinner ticket holders receive their first course then. Dietary restrictions and allergies can be accommodated if the team is told when booking or in advance.

The ticket page encourages dramatic evening wear with a dark, celestial look. The house dress code is upscale casual, meaning night-out or cocktail attire. Staff enforce it at the door and turn away streetwear, athletic wear, gym sneakers and flip-flops.

The concept predates the Paradise Club production. In an interview published in January 2021, Lara Jacobs said she was preparing to launch MoonRise NYC, her own circus-theater concept, in Brooklyn. A listing dated October 2022 places MoonRise in Bushwick, Brooklyn, where Jacobs and Rigolo Swiss Nouveau Cirque ran it as a venue for performance art and a lounge serving craft cocktails. Fridays there were a separate cocktail-and-circus evening, and Saturdays were the MoonRise Show.

The Paradise Club production is a reworking of that original. It gave its first performance on June 28, 2024, at Paradise Club in The Times Square EDITION, announced as a limited summer run. Performances that year ran on Fridays and Saturdays through October 25, 2024. The show returned in spring and summer 2025, again on Fridays and Saturdays, and the latest run began on September 26, 2026.

Paradise Club itself opened in 2019 in the new Times Square EDITION, after the 20 Times Square development and its hotel opened in February 2019. House of Yes and Ian Schrager produced the show The Devouring there, and the club has hosted other cabaret-style shows since.