Next Las Vegas stars? Potty-mouth puppets
Mom and Dad alert: Definitely not the Muppets.
And yet, a Henson name is attached. "Puppet Up! — Uncensored", which blends puppets, improv comedy and audience interaction, opens at The Venetian on a date still to be determined this spring.
The puppets will share the Sands Showroom with the vocal quartet Human Nature. Both shows share a local co-producer in Adam Steck's SPI Entertainment. The stand-up series "Lipshtick" will move to the Palazzo theater recently vacated by the Sinatra tribute "Frank — The Man. The Music."
Comedy nerds may remember "Puppet Up!" in its earliest incarnation at The Comedy Festival at Caesars Palace in November 2006. Those shows were filmed and aired the next week as a TBS special.
The show was developed by Brian Henson, son of the late Muppets creator Jim Henson and current head of the Jim Henson Company, with actor-comedian Patrick Bristow (a co-star of the sitcom "Ellen").
"Puppet Up!" was originally developed under Henson Alternative Productions, to distance it from the company's family fare. Base Entertainment will co-produce the Venetian show.
(Disclosure: The Review-Journal is owned by a limited liablility company controlled by the Adelson family, majority owners of the Las Vegas Sands Corp., which operates The Venetian.)
— Read more from Mike Weatherford at reviewjournal.com. Contact him at mweatherford@reviewjournal.com and follow @Mikeweatherford on Twitter.
