Shows’ dreams actually delusions

If you go to a party with entertainers, don't drink the Kool-Aid.

Delusions run high in show business. They make some dreams come true and tip others to come crashing down.

Some delusions have roots in sanity. A new Sahara show called "Raw Talent Live," for instance, has all the ingredients of a winner. But somewhere it jumped the track with a wonky premise about a "Laptop of Life" before anyone could intervene with a reality check for its producer-creator (look for a full review in Friday's Neon).

It's still fixable, I suppose. Another title, "Point Break Live!," simply never had a prayer. But people went and did it anyway.

"It didn't make any sense on any level, so I thought, 'Maybe that's the secret formula,' " says David Saxe, who runs the V Theater at the Miracle Mile Shops at Planet Hollywood.

Saxe admits he bought into a popular notion, shared by the backers of "Criss Angel -- Believe," that there is a great untapped market of young people who could be lured from the nightclubs by the right title. But if you ask those behind the bygone "Fashionistas" or "Shag With a Twist," that market segment might be a mirage.

As landlord, Saxe didn't get to find out. He says the "Point Break" producers weren't even capitalized to make it through a full week with their slapstick spoof of the action movie.

"It's so ridiculous. It's just the business," he says. "People in show business think undercapitalization will be different for them than for someone opening a restaurant."

"Point Break" producer Eve Hars says investors were "floored" by the stock market nose dive, and she "didn't feel comfortable asking them to put more money into that venue."

Not only was "Point Break" trying to open during an economic crisis, it was trying to introduce a new genre to the Strip. Hars calls it "punk-rock theater." I thought "beer show" because it reminded me of a sudsy night at "The Real Live Brady Bunch" years ago in Chicago.

College-age crowds in big cities are attuned to seeing this kind of shoestring farce in small clubs. Las Vegans aren't, especially not with $48 tickets (even if those were marked up to be discounted at the half-price places). The concept didn't fit the room, or the tastes of the few who did turn up. "It doesn't make sense in there," Hars now realizes.

So how did it get this far? "We were spoiled" by success in Los Angeles and New York, Hars says. "We had been made sort of overconfident, I think. We jumped too quickly without really looking."

People told the cast how great the show would do in Las Vegas. "We were eager to take it somewhere else, and Vegas seemed logical," she says.

Now it seems like the Strip was an illusion. Or a delusion.

Contact reporter Mike Weatherford at mweatherford@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0288.