Tuesday, May 20, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
COLUMN: MIKE WEATHERFORD
Producer Saxe still stumping shows
While the fate of one of his two shows remains undecided, producer David Saxe is moving ahead with a new edition of the other one, "Showgirls of Magic" at the San Remo.
Saxe is out to convince Venetian officials that "V -- The Ultimate Variety Show" is worth saving, even if the hotel ends up buying out the Showroom at The Venetian it now leases to a third party.
"I don't know if (hotel officials) know how well my show does," but he's hoping to share financial information in a meeting soon.
"V" proved to be a crowdpleaser that plays to the strengths of the hybrid nightclub/showroom, and has succeeded in a 6 p.m. time slot where other shows have failed to break even in rent agreements with the room's operator, H&H of Nevada.
The Venetian has made public its desire to buy back the room and convert it into a conventional theater for Broadway musicals. But Saxe is hoping he can still have the 6 p.m. time slot in front of whatever musical might end up there, just as he now clears the stage for 8 p.m. performances of "Michael Flatley's Lord of the Dance."
"Specialty acts are designed to be front-of-curtain acts that take place during a change of scenery," Saxe notes.
H&H head Richard Heftel confirmed Friday that he's in talks with the hotel, but says "it's a little preliminary for me to comment" about a deal. Both "Lord" and "V" are apparently guaranteed until Nov. 30.
In the meantime, Saxe is using profits from "V" for a $70,000 "Showgirls" relaunch. It's the second makeover for the cabaret show since Saxe took it over from his mother Bonnie in early 2001.
June 1 is the target date for the new show, with a different cast of four women and three specialty acts. Saxe says he and choreographer Tiger Martina are trying "to have things in every number that make people go, `I've never seen that before.' "
The two are adding "more magic and more sex," Saxe says, but the show also will be "more clever. Each number has a reason to it, a story behind it."
A sexed-up ad campaign also will position "Showgirls" as more direct competition to topless cabaret shows such as "Skintight" and "Crazy Girls," but "we're trying to make it still fun for the women too," says Saxe. ...
The "Lord of the Dance" producers last fall bragged about a $250 million deal with H&H, making no attempt to substantiate a figure that would have trumped even Celine Dion's reported $100 million contract for Caesars Palace. It was curious then, to stroll the Belz outlet mall on Sunday and run into hawkers offering "Lord" tickets as a reward for sitting through a Polo Towers time-share pitch.
This was nothing unusual; condominium owners often cut deals to buy blocks of tickets for shows that can't fill a room with walk-up business. It was just amusing to see "Lord" in such company after the big boast. ...
"Not 90 percent false. 110 percent false." That was George Maloof's creative reply to a rumor published elsewhere, that Sahara magician Steve Wyrick might be moving to the Palms.
The Palms head confirmed the obvious; that his hotel would have no space for a theatrical magic show without some new major construction. ...
Changes are afoot in the busy little room on the second floor of Fitzgeralds that serves as a hybrid between a lounge and a showroom. (The shows are curtained off to focus a crowd without the comings and goings of an open lounge, but admission is free for a one-drink minimum.)
Magician Arian Black closes her fun little "Secrets" revue at the end of the month, and the hotel will not rush to fill the early afternoon slot, says Gene Sagas, who oversees the room.
Singer Paull Casas, last seen at the Bourbon Street, has moved in with 5 p.m. shows Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Producer Dan Rodriguez opens the show with a comedy-magic act, "The Great Golfini." Rodriguez brought Casas, his childhood friend, to Las Vegas and produced his Bourbon Street effort.
Steve Connolly's "Spirit of the King" has replaced Craig Newell's Elvis Presley tribute Thursdays through Mondays; Sagas said frequent hotel guests needed a change. Connolly's fun, not-so-serious approach to the King was a part of "Tease" last year at the bygone Blue Note Las Vegas.
Connolly performs at 7 and 9 p.m. until June 15, when the 9 p.m. slot will go to a new show, tentatively titled "Divalicious." The hotel is producing the show, and casting it this week. Sagas calls it "a very sexy revue with costume changes and hot music." ...
Speaking of lounge/ showroom hybrids, the Castaways knows a good thing when it sees one. It has locked in the Sixtiesmania show band for the rest of the year, says frontman Andrew Hill.
"We've had people see the show 40 or 50 times," Hill says of the nine-piece that covers "everything but Motown and Elvis," which he feels are pretty well-represented elsewhere in town.
Mike Weatherford's entertainment column appears Sundays and Tuesdays.COMING WEDNESDAY
