CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- As Frank Ferrante sits in the grand, mirrored, velvet-clad Spiegeltent on the 14th floor of the Cambria Hotel, he marvels about how he got here.
"Isn't this venue amazing?" he asks. "This has been an awesome run here in Chicago. The people here have really embraced me."
Ferrante said he knew Groucho would be his destiny when he first saw a Marx Brothers movie when he was 9-years old.
"I grew up in California. I was a shy kid who discovered comedy and it shifted my world. Groucho was 85 when I discovered the Marx Brothers," he recalled. "I remembering thinking when I was a teenager, I want to make people laugh the way Groucho Marx makes me laugh."
Ferrante was a drama student at USC when he created the show.
"I put on a show called an 'Evening with Groucho' as my senior project. I invited Groucho's children to see me at USC. That was gutsy, but they all showed up. I couldn't believe it. I was scared to death, but I did the show, it was a big hit. It paved the way for other roles, directing, producing, you name it."
Ferrante said this piece of work is his proudest of his career. He calls it a tribute to his comedic hero and it's stayed with him, and evolved for more than three decades.
"The improvisation and the audience interactions makes it feel current. I feel like I bring Groucho into 2019. There's a hippness to Groucho's humor. He has an edge, he's a truth teller, he's wickedly witty and non stop and relentless and joyful," he said. "The idea of that is what would it be like to spend 90 minutes with the funniest man on the planet, in my opinion."
"An Evening with Groucho", will play one night only on Sept. 17 at 8 p.m. at The Spiegeltent ZaZou located on the 14th floor in the Cambria Hotel Chicago Loop-Theatre District, 32 W. Randolph St. Tickets are on sale now by calling 312-488-0900.