Red Hot Annie
Creative Director • Immersive Experience Designer • Burlesque Artist & Educator
For more than twenty years, Red Hot Annie has been learning how to direct attention.
Onstage. In classrooms. At private celebrations. Inside theatrical worlds. Across corporate events, brand experiences and rooms full of people who did not yet know what was about to happen.
Today, Annie performs, teaches, directs and designs live experiences from Chicago.
Sometimes the answer is a burlesque class.
Sometimes it is one extraordinary performance.
Sometimes it is an entire world.
Join a Chicago Burlesque Class →
Most People Arrive Through a Different Door
Some people find Annie because they want to learn burlesque.
Some are planning a celebration and want something more personal than ordinary party entertainment.
Some need a performer.
Some have a room, an audience or a brand and know they want something to happen, but they have not figured out what that something should be yet.
That is usually where the interesting work begins.
Choose Your Door
Chicago Burlesque Classes
The easiest way into Annie’s world.
Beginner-friendly Chicago burlesque classes exploring movement, musicality, confidence, stage presence and the craft of being seen.
No dance experience required.
No audition.
No pressure to perform.
Just curiosity.
Private Experiences
For celebrations you want to participate in, not simply watch.
Private burlesque experiences can be created for bachelorettes, birthdays, friend groups and milestone gatherings.
Playful, personal and shaped around the people actually in the room.
Explore Private Chicago Experiences →
Hire Red Hot Annie
For the moment the room needs a performer.
Annie creates featured burlesque and cabaret performances, immersive hosting and curated entertainment for private celebrations, corporate gatherings and distinctive live events.
Explore Performance & Availability →
Need multiple performers or a fully produced entertainment program? Explore Vaudezilla →
Creative Direction & Brand Experiences
For the moment you know the experience matters more than the act.
Annie works with brands, producers, agencies, venues and private clients to determine what should actually happen in the room.
That might mean a performance, a character, a guest journey, a reveal, a piece of theatrical hospitality or an entire immersive environment.
Planning something for a brand or campaign? Explore Brand Activation Entertainment →
The Pink Hotel
The deepest way in.
The Pink Hotel is a living performance world: part theater, part hotel mythology, part immersive story.
Guests do not simply watch the evening unfold.
They enter it.
Burlesque Was the Beginning
Burlesque made Annie a performer.
Producing taught her how to build the room around the performance.
Years of creating shows, teaching performers, directing audiences and developing immersive worlds revealed the larger practice underneath it all:
how people pay attention, participate and remember.
That question now runs through everything Annie creates, from a first burlesque class to a corporate gala.
Work With Annie
Performance
Hire Red Hot Annie for featured burlesque, cabaret, immersive hosting and select specialty performance.
Creative Direction
Bring Annie in when you have an audience, venue, occasion or idea and need someone to determine what the live experience should actually become.
Brand Activation
Create live moments around a product, campaign or guest experience through performance, characters, interaction and theatrical direction.
Explore Brand Activation Entertainment →
Larger Productions
When a concept needs multiple performers, musicians, specialty talent or full production, Annie builds the larger team through Vaudezilla.
Explore Vaudezilla Productions →
Selected Experience
Red Hot Annie’s work has moved through Chicago classrooms, cabaret stages, private homes, hospitality spaces, corporate events and large-scale productions.
Recent and selected work includes projects for Harley-Davidson, Soho House Chicago, National Safety Council, Midtown Athletic Club, Templeton Rye Whiskey and Curatrix, alongside two decades of independently produced performance and immersive entertainment.
Why Clients, Students & Collaborators Choose Annie
- More than 20 years in professional performance, production and teaching
- Founder of Vaudezilla
- Creator of The Pink Hotel
- Beginner-friendly teaching grounded in real performance craft
- Creative direction shaped by decades of producing live audiences
- Professional event experience spanning private celebrations, corporate programs and brand activations
- A preference for designing the right moment rather than simply adding more entertainment
Not Sure Where to Begin?
Want to try burlesque? Start with a Chicago class.
Planning a bachelorette or private celebration? Explore private experiences.
Want Annie to perform? Explore performance options.
Have an idea, room or audience but aren’t sure what the experience should be? Explore creative direction.
Building something for a brand? Explore brand activation entertainment.
Need multiple performers or complete production? Explore Vaudezilla.
Want to disappear into the story instead? Enter The Pink Hotel.
Enter the World
Receive invitations to classes, performances, experiments and immersive experiences from Red Hot Annie.
No constant marketing.
Just an invitation when something interesting is happening.
Trusted. Booked. Remembered.
★★★★★
“A breathtaking performance—our guests are still talking about it!”
— Event Planner, The Peninsula Chicago