-- Feb. 10, 2006
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Let Us 'Spray'

A leaner version of the Broadway hit helped attract Harvey Fierstein to Luxor
By MIKE WEATHERFORD
REVIEW-JOURNAL

"Hairspray" lets the audience laugh at the over-the-top costumes, but director Jack O'Brien says the actors aren't allowed to. From left, Fran Jaye as Motormouth Maybelle, Harvey Fierstein as Edna Turnblad, Katrina Rose Dideriksen as Tracy Turnblad and Dick Latessa as Wilbur Turnblad.
Photos by Jane Kalinowsky.

Link Larkin (Austin Miller) comforts Tracy Turnblad (Katrina Rose Dideriksen) in a scene from "Hairspray."

Prudy Pingleton (Susan Mosher) hugs her daughter Penny Lou (Chandra Lee Schwartz).

Hairspray" director Jack O'Brien never made it to the back row of the Neil Simon Theatre in New York. But one night last week, he and choreographer Jerry Mitchell watched an entire rehearsal of the hit musical from a far rear corner of the Luxor Theatre, "just to see what it was like."

"This is a new battlefield here, and I think we're all trying to figure out how it works," O'Brien says of the evolution to a new, compressed "Hairspray" on the Strip. The vantage point taught them a few things about "focus, clarity (and) articulation" in the spread-out, 1,526-seat theater.

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And the verdict?

"I think it's going to be great here."

The Vegas "Hairspray" -- now in previews for a formal opening on Wednesday -- is about 20 minutes shorter than the 2002 show that won eight Tony Awards. But it's otherwise straight from the source, reuniting the creative team and original stars.

For 12 weeks, Harvey Fierstein and Dick Latessa reprise their roles as the parents of a vivacious teen who sets out to integrate a TV dance show in 1962 Baltimore.

"I didn't want to be part of a touring company they dropped off," Fierstein says of the creative reunion that was a condition for returning to his cross-dressing role of Edna Turnblad.

And the shorter version was an attraction rather than a deterrent. "That's a worthy challenge," Fierstein said of the goal described to him as, "set(ting) off a bottle rocket. ... The curtain going up is the lighting of the rocket and it explodes."

"There's something airborne about the energy of this musical," O'Brien agrees. "The less frequently we have to touch down the more fun it is to the audience."

"Hairspray," first staged in Seattle, is one of several recent Broadway creations based on a nonmusical movie, this one a 1988 comedy by cult director John Waters.

Though Waters and his transvestite muse Divine had made some of the most willfully disgusting movies ever ("Pink Flamingos," "Female Trouble"), this was a PG tale based on Waters' memories of "The Buddy Deane Show," a Baltimore variation of Dick Clark's "American Bandstand."

The movie paired newcomer Ricki Lake as Tracy Turnblad with Divine in a surprisingly sweet character turn as her mother. The musical launched with songs from the team of Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, who mined a similarly old-fashioned style from an unconventional source with their songs for "South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut."

"Cross-dressing, racial integration and overeating have never seemed so wholesome, so American," Waters writes in the liner notes to the Broadway soundtrack to a musical "for outsiders of every persuasion."

Tracy (Katrina Rose Dideriksen) spends her young life pining to be on "The Corny Collins Show" and gets the attention of the TV host (Kevin Spirtas) despite objections about her body type from "the Council" of popular kids headed by the treacherous Amber Von Tussle (Katharine Leonard) and her mother, Velma (Susan Anton).

But Tracy doesn't stop there. She further riles up Amber and Velma by trying to get her new black friends on the regular broadcast instead of the occasional "Negro Day" -- the term used by the real Deane show, which ceased production in the wake of integration pressure in 1964.

"In 1961 you had the American dream at its most fully realized. Tract homes, all of that culture was at its height. It was a peaceful time," Fierstein notes. "Then you look at '62. ... It's the bubbling pot. By 1964 you had cities burning."

"We don't hit anybody over the head (with the message) but it's hard to extricate the serious underpinnings of the show which give it its ballast," O'Brien adds. "It allows the character of Motormouth (the mother of Tracy's black friend, played by Fran Jaye) to sing that great song in the second act ('I Know Where I've Been.') Without it, it would have the consistency of a Communion wafer, I think."

Pruning the show meant losing the second-act curtain-opener, "The Big Dollhouse," and Velma's song, "(The Legend of) Miss Baltimore Crabs." But O'Brien says he didn't want to cut "what I call the involvement quotient, your ability to get to know these people and subsequently care about them."

The director says there also came a time to reel in a cast that can get caught up in the energy of Mitchell's choreography.

"I was able to watch the effects of all that adrenalized excitement on people who are getting increasingly giddier, as opposed to increasingly more real. When I finally said we're going to play this seriously, it was a real wake-up call to everybody."

The secret to the show, he says, is that the audience -- even those in the far corners of the theater -- can relish the outrageous wigs and costumes, but the actors onstage must be oblivious.

"They have to be in a bell jar. They have to be in an atmosphere of total purity," he says. "They can't wink wink, nudge nudge. Because then they're satirists and we're not. We're playing this for keeps."

what: "Hairspray"

when: 7 p.m. today, Monday and Tuesday; 7 and 10 p.m. Saturday and Sunday

where: Luxor Theatre, 3900 Las Vegas Blvd. South

tickets: $?? (262-4900)

-- Jan. 27, 2006
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

What You See

Las Vegas Art Museum displays 17 of minimalism's more important works
By KEN WHITE
REVIEW-JOURNAL

[[[Libby Lumpkin of the Las Vegas Art Museum poses with Judy Chicago's "Trinity."

John McCracken's "Dimension" is displayed.

Ron Davis' "Reverse Wave" is made of pigment and polyester resin.
Photo by Ralph Fountain.]]]

Minimalism, an art movement that emerged in the 1960s, is probably best defined by painter Frank Stella's unofficial slogan for the movement: "What you see is what you see."

What the public can see, through March 31 at the Las Vegas Art Museum, are 17 of some of minimalism's more important paintings and sculptures by eight artists in the new exhibit "Southern California Minimalism."

Minimalism, a reaction to the emotional abstract expressionism of the 1950s, reduces the work to as few colors and shapes as possible.

When it began in New York, minimalism was on the austere and serious side, but Los Angeles-area artists put a Southern California spin on it, with bright colors and shapes reminiscent of the area's sunny environment.

"We're really lucky to get these pieces that are so historically important," says Libby Lumpkin, the museum's consulting executive director and curator of the exhibit.

The works by artists Peter Alexander, Larry Bell, Judy Chicago, Ron Davis, Robert Irwin, Craig Kauffman, John McCracken and James Turrell are widely spaced throughout the large gallery, but the space is necessary, Lumpkin says.

"The art involves the space they're in and the light they're in. When you encounter these plain and secular type works you find yourself conscious of yourself."

Minimalists overthrew the idea that art is a personal form of expression that reveals the artist.

Take Irwin's "Untitled (#2221)," made in 1968. It is a cast acrylic sphere with a stripe of silver bisecting it horizontally. Lights are positioned so that four circular shadows created by the disc fall on the wall behind it.

Or there's Irwin's "Column," from 1967. Made of acrylic, it stands alone in the center of the gallery, reflecting and refracting light over a large space.

Perhaps the most fascinating pieces are the light projections by Turrell. The museum had to build two rooms in the back of the gallery to display "Munson (White)," also from 1967, which looks like a large white box floating on the wall, and "Enzu (Blue)," 1968, a tall column of light that stretches from the floor to the ceiling.

All of the works on display are on loan from collectors. About two-thirds of the pieces are held by Las Vegas residents, Lumpkin says.

Jan. 17, 2006
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

NORM: Plenty of local angles in pageant

Local Miss America angles abound along Las Vegas Boulevard this week.

Former KLAS-TV, Channel 8 news anchor Sue Lowden is serving as a preliminary judge for the Miss America Pageant.

She's on familiar turf. Known as Sue Plummer when she was Miss New Jersey 1973, she finished as second runner-up. One of the first faces she recognized this week was Miss America 1974 Rebecca King, also a preliminary judge.

Lowden, a Las Vegan since 1978 when she came to town to join KLAS, married casino mogul Paul Lowden in 1983. He owned the Hacienda, now the site of Mandalay Bay, and the Sahara and currently holds a 17-acre parcel at what was formerly Wet 'n Wild.

Ten years ago, Lowden ran into another familiar Miss America face, Lynn Weidner, who won Miss New Jersey in 1971 as Lynn Hackerman.

Weidner has been married for almost 25 years to Bill Weidner, president and COO of Las Vegas Sands, parent company of The Venetian in Las Vegas as well as Macao.

The first meeting between the two Miss Jerseys was a memorable one.

Weidner was so impressed she turned to the director of the New Jersey pageant and asked what Plummer (now Lowden) did for her talent segment. The piano, she was told.

"I put my hands to my face," recalled Weidner, "and, in my best Groucho Marx finger-waving routine, said, 'If her fingers reach the keys, I think we have a winner.'"

Other locals who wore Miss America state crowns are Clark County Commissioner Lynette Boggs McDonald, who was Miss Oregon 1989, and Susan Anton, Miss California 1969 and second runner-up to Miss America in 1970.

THE SCENE AND HEARD

There's a ton of good footage and back-chutes drama from our recent National Finals Rodeo in The Learning Channel's "Beyond the Bull" series, which continues tonight at 9. I'm told the bull riders were seen playing poker with the same fervent approach they apply to their riding: all-in or nuthin'.

SIGHTINGS

Reigning Miss America Deidre Downs, posing with the cast of "Avenue Q" and their alter ego puppets on Sunday night at the Wynn. ... Miss Mississippi Kristian Dambrino, with a butter knife in each hand, cracking up her Miss America Pageant competitors with an impromptu dance routine to the music of Michael Jackson's "Billy Jean" after Sunday night's dinner at Planet Hollywood (Caesars Palace). ... Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick, dining at Kokomos (The Mirage) on Sunday night. ... In the crowd at "Hypnosis Gone Wild" (Stardust) on Sunday: San Francisco 49ers quarterback Alex Smith. ... Cuban-born pitcher Jose Contreras of the world champion Chicago White Sox, at "Havana Night Show" (Stardust) on Saturday. ... At Body English (Hard Rock Hotel) on Sunday: The Killers, Jonathan Ogden of the Baltimore Ravens, actor Chris Masterson and illusionist Criss Angel.

THE PUNCH LINE

"You gotta feel sorry for Mary-Louise Parker. "Desperate Housewives" is one of the biggest shows on the planet, and "Weeds" is only watched by Snoop Doggy Dog." -- Chris Rock, before presenting the Golden Globe to Parker for best actress-TV series, musical or comedy on Monday night.

Norm Clarke can be reached at 383-0244 or norm@reviewjournal.com.

-- Jan. 06, 2006
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

World Vibrations series to showcase bagpipes

World Vibrations, a music series sponsored by Clark County Parks and Recreation, will continue with a bagpipe performance by Desert Skye Pipes and Drums at 2 p.m. Jan. 14 at Winchester Cultural Center, 3130 S. McLeod St.

Desert Sky Pipes and Drums is led by Pipe Major Danny Packer and Drum Sgt. Bryce Parker.

The group was established in 2000, formed from an earlier group called the Clark County Celts. The band competes against other pipe bands all over the Southwest.

In February, Desert Skye won first place at a competition at the Queen Mary in Long Beach, Calif.

The band has a large repertoire of Scottish, Irish and traditional pieces as well as marches.

Admission is $10 for adults, $7 for children and seniors. For more information, call 455-7340.

-- Dec. 23, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

16-screen movie theater offers innovations
By CAROL CLING
REVIEW-JOURNAL

A vaulted ceiling and colorful murals provide a backdrop for construction bustle last week inside the lobby of Century Theatres' new 16-screen multiplex at the South Coast, the chain's fifth casino location.
Photo by John Gurzinski.

Play it again, Sam.

"Casablanca" may not be showing at Century Theatres' latest Las Vegas multiplex, now open inside the new South Coast hotel-casino. But the 16-screen theater definitely recalls Century's greatest hits.

Although the South Coast multiplex has its own distinctive atmosphere -- from a vaulted ceiling, complete with starry tiles, to polished granite wall accents -- the theater also boasts elements reminiscent of the chain's other casino locations at The Orleans, Sam's Town, Santa Fe Station and Suncoast. (Century also operates the Cinedome in Henderson and the Las Vegas Drive-in.)

Like The Orleans, the South Coast multiplex is located on the casino's second floor, where it shares an entrance hallway with the casino's bowling center and bingo hall.

Unlike The Orleans, however, two escalators will transport patrons to the second-floor entrance. One escalator is located at the south end of the casino, adjacent to the sports book and buffet; the other is near a rear parking lot, enabling moviegoers (especially families) to head directly to the theater without tromping through the casino.

Building a theater on a second-floor deck can be "kind of tough," acknowledges Julie Lane, Century's construction project manager, because "you're waiting for other things to be complete before you can go."

She estimates actual theater construction has "probably been about 10 months." The average 16-plex, Lane adds, takes nine months to build -- but the average 16-plex doesn't come with a hotel-casino attached.

Inside the South Coast multiplex, a curved granite box office counter and customer service area greet patrons. The main lobby, with its vaulted ceiling, boasts a central Cafè Cinema snack bar featuring such brand-name attractions as Starbucks coffee and hand-scooped Dreyer's ice cream. (There's real butter for the popcorn, too.)

Those "are things that our competitors don't seem to offer," says Bob Schimmin, Century's vice president of concessions. And "they're things our customers seem to like."

Adorning the walls are colorful murals reminiscent of those at other Century locations, featuring such vintage Hollywood figures as a glamour-girl starlet and a white-hatted cowboy waving to fans from the saddle of his stalwart steed.

The high ceilings and stylized decor give the theater "that old movie-style feel," says David Stowers, Century's vice president of operations and training for the Midwest, who is helping to open the South Coast.

For all the lobby amenities, however, it's what's inside that counts. And inside the South Coast's 16 auditoriums, moviegoers will find a variety of familiar attributes, plus a few refinements.

All 16 auditoriums, which range in size from about 150 to about 500 seats, feature digital sound and meet established standards for sound and picture excellence developed by THX Ltd., another brainchild of "Star Wars" creator George Lucas.

Having THX certification means "you can be watching a nice art movie, and next to you, you can have 'King Kong' and not hear it" through the walls, Stowers says.

Each auditorium features stadium seating. And each plush, blue-upholstered seat is a rocking chair, equipped with a cupholder armrest that can be raised, creating a "love seat" for moviegoers who want to cuddle while they watch.

That's a first for Century; the chain's other theaters alternate rows of rocker seats and love seats.

In the projection booth, one auditorium comes equipped with both a conventional 35mm projector and a digital projector to show an ever-increasing number of digital releases.

"As the technology becomes better and better and more affordable for theater companies," more movies will be released in a digital format, Stowers predicts. "But you still can't beat film."

-- Dec. 16, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Diva in the Desert
Dame Edna makes her Las Vegas debut with a two-week run at Luxor
By MIKE WEATHERFORD
REVIEW-JOURNAL

"I felt sorry for Las Vegas," Dame Edna says of why she's making her local debut. "I saw this little dot in the desert and thought, how underprivileged they must be there in the world of entertainment."

If you want to learn about an actor named Barry Humphries, stick to Internet search engines. Dame Edna Everage doesn't have anything good to say about him.

"Barry and I don't really speak," says Humphries' alter ego, the comedic Australian matriarch who makes "her" Las Vegas debut in a Luxor engagement running Sunday through Dec. 31.

Dame Edna refers to Humphries as her manager, "a pathetic figure in many ways," one to whom she is tied by a 50-year-old contract. "It really is binding, unfortunately. I have to support this parasite."

Though it might seem more likely to speak in character only for radio or TV, Dame Edna herself gave this phone interview, peppering the chat with observations that just might make it to the Luxor stage.

"I felt sorry for Las Vegas," she says. "I saw this little dot in the desert and thought, how underprivileged they must be there in the world of entertainment ... I had a vision of a pretty run-down old place, but I believe it's come on a bit."

One could fear the 71-year-old Humphries had been fully absorbed by the character, something akin to Michael Redgrave being taken over by his ventriloquist dummy in the classic horror flick "Dead of Night." But the Dame does volunteer that Humphries provided a shark's voice in "Finding Nemo," and those Internet searches find a long history of film and stage credits.

But none has been so enduring as Dame Edna, the matronly raider of Liberace's lost dressing room. "I'm very tasteful and I understand Vegas is a little on the brash side," she says.

Those Internet sites will tell you Humphries was a painter and early proponent of the Dada movement who created Dame Edna for a performance tied to the 1956 Olympics. After other ventures in the film and theater world, Humphries cemented Dame Edna's current persona in London in 1979 with the award-winning "A Night With Dame Edna."

Her one-woman shows divide their time between regaling audiences with tales from her storied career in show business -- which can be construed as a satire of Hollywood autobiographies -- and dishing out straight talk to those in the first few rows.

"I do marriage counseling, I do psychic readings onstage, I give gifts and I do a talent quest," she says. "It's a hard thing to describe, but it reaches the hearts of American audiences."

Finally.

In 1977, "I did an experimental show off-Broadway which failed. It was savagely reviewed in the New York Times by a temporary critic," she says. But Dame Edna was much in demand elsewhere.

In 1998, "New Edna: The Spectacle" treated London audiences to a two-part revue, in which the usual one-woman observations were preceded by a musical spectacle that chronicled Dame Edna's life story.

"It wasn't good enough," she says of the production that closed after two months. "I'm not blaming anyone but myself. I felt I had reached a watershed. I had to make a decision, 'What next?' "

Looking back to the Big Apple, she realized, "It's 25 years since I did my off-Broadway thing and we found out the critic had died. Admittedly, I had stuck a lot of pins in a voodoo doll."

But just to be safe, she decided to test the act in San Francisco first. The city is known for its support of camp humor and drag shows. "I think they're a bit unsavory," Dame Edna says of the latter. "But (San Franciscans) love comedy, and they love performance. I did an experimental two weeks. It became four months, and it led to Broadway and a Tony (a Special Tony in 2000 for a live theatrical presentation)."

Dame Edna returned to New York this year for "Dame Edna: Back With a Vengeance." The show that ended in May brought "a Tony nomination because Billy Crystal's become a rather hard act to follow (with his own one-man show)."

Between the two New York engagements, Dame Edna infiltrated U.S. living rooms with a recurring role on Fox's "Ally McBeal" in 2001. Originally signed as a litigant for one episode, she stayed on as the title character's confidant and sounding board.

"A lot of the work I do is a little bit lonely, and to be part of a company reminded me that I was an actress," she says.

Now the only question is whether Las Vegas audiences will respond to Dame Edna's wit and wisdom, or whether her forum will be considered too "downtown" for the Strip.

"When I began with no grandiose ambitions, they said in Melbourne, 'Don't go to Sidney, they won't understand.' And in Sidney they said, 'Don't go to England, they won't get it.' And in England, they said, 'Don't go to New York.' And in New York, they said, 'Don't go to the Midwest.' ''

Having struck as close as Phoenix, she figures Las Vegas will get it. If not, it doesn't matter.

"In a way, I'm helped by the fact that I'm ridiculously wealthy. I do it for the love."

-- Dec. 02, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Young artists to perform 'Holiday Candlelight Concert' at Wynn Las Vegas

The Impresario Circle of Opera Las Vegas is presenting the "Holiday Candlelight Concert" Dec. 11 in the Alsace Room of Wynn Las Vegas, 3131 Las Vegas Blvd. South.

The festivities begin at 10:45 a.m. with a champagne reception. At 11 a.m., the St Lucia Procession will begin and at 11:30, Opera Las Vegas' Young Artists will perform operatic selections and holiday music, accompanied by pianist Valerie Ore. At 12:15 p.m., a luncheon will include an awards presentation.

"Holiday Candlelight Concert" tickets cost $???, with tables of 10 or more available.

For more information, contact Florence R. Schumacher at 655-9953.

-- Nov. 25, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Calling All Car Fans
The Motor Trend International Auto Show rolls into town this weekend
By KEN WHITE
REVIEW-JOURNAL

[[[Las Vegans can check out the latest automobiles by 25 manufacturers at the Motor Trend event in the Las Vegas Convention Center.

WWE wrestling diva Torrie Wilson is scheduled to appear.]]]

The Motor Trend International Auto Show at the Las Vegas Convention Center will feature hundreds of the latest cars, trucks, minivans and sport utility vehicles.

And one hot blond. (WWE diva Torrie Wilson will greet fans and sign autographs from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday.)

New cars from 25 manufacturers will be on the display floor, plus exotic vehicles and classic muscle cars.

Among the exotic cars will be the Lamborghini Gallardo, Lamborghini Murcielago, Lamborghini Murcielago Roadster, Saleen S7 and a 2005 Spyker C8 Spider, a collection valued at more than $1 million.

A display of vintage Mustangs will be featured, plus a special exhibit to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Porsche Club of America.

For muscle-car fans, a collection assembled by the editors of Street Rodder Magazine will include two 1932 Highboy Ford Roadsters, a 1933 full-fendered Ford Roadster and a 1936 Ford three window coupe.

New to this year's show will be the Southern Nevada Ford Stores Ride & Drive in which attendees will be able to get behind the wheel and test drive a variety of new Ford models, including the Explorer, Fusion and Mustang, each day of the show.

Aftermarket Alley, a separate area of the show, will feature a mix of vehicles, unique paint jobs and vendors showcasing the latest aftermarket parts and accessories for sale.

Sunday is kids day, and all children 12 and younger are admitted free when accompanied by a paying adult. There will be meet-and-greet appearances by two famous comic book characters, The Thing from "Fantastic Four," from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., and Spider-Man between 2 and 5 p.m.

-- Nov. 18, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Clark County Museum extends hours for holiday season

The Clark County Museum, 1830 S. Boulder Highway, will celebrate the holidays by extending its public hours to 8 p.m. on Dec. 9-11.

The evening events will feature a special exhibit of working model trains in the historic depot, vintage decorations in each of the restored houses, lights on the locomotive and other outdoor locations, and free refreshments in the visitors' center.

The museum store will offer hand-crafted and signed limited-edition Native American jewelry, pottery and art, as well as books and other items relating to Nevada history, natural history, geology and archeology.

Admission to the Museum is $1.50, or $1 for seniors and children. More information is available at 455-7955 or on the internet at www.accessclarkcounty.com.

On Dec. 9, from 5:30-7 p.m., authors and author representatives will be on hand to sign books that will be available for purchase at the museum. Included are Joan Whitely, author of "Young Las Vegas: Before the Future Found Us;" A.D. Hopkins, who edited and wrote much of "The First 100: Portraits of the Men and Women Who Shaped Las Vegas;" and Dorothy Wright, representing the late Frank Wright, author of "Nevada Yesterdays: Short Looks at Las Vegas History."

Museum-goers will also have a final chance to view the centennial exhibit, "Whistle Stop to Windfall." The exhibit, which ends Jan. 2, features historic photographs, posters, memorabilia, clothing, artifacts, and recreated scenes which bring Las Vegas to life from its founding in 1905 as a tiny railroad town, to the present.

Visitors to the exhibit will enter through a 1905-style tent saloon complete with bar. When Las Vegas officially began on May 15 with a public auction of lots, the railroad restricted the sale of liquor to Block 16. Block 16 became a famous "red light" district with gambling and prostitution, which, although illegal, was readily available.

The exhibit features sections on hotels, on education, law enforcement, the wedding industry complete with a model wedding chapel, the first volunteer fire department, a section on unique Las Vegas individuals, and an interactive "Las Vegas Trivia" game.

The Clark County Museum has a collection of restored homes and other buildings moved from various locations in Southern Nevada, as well as a "ghost town," and a modern exhibit building. The Museum is a function of Clark County Parks and Recreation.

Nov. 06, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

NEON SUNDAY: Fundraisers slated for Flamingo, UNLV

Today is a day that lets you feel good about spending money for entertainment.

Sketch comics unite for "The Benefit of Laughter," a fundraiser for Hurricane Katrina victims staged by past and present members of The Second City comedy troupe.

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George Wendt of "Cheers" fame is probably the best-known member of a gathering that includes Tim Meadows, Richard Kind, Jeff Garlin, Tim Kazurinsky and Jason Sudeikis, an alumnus of the Las Vegas Second City troupe now on "Saturday Night Live."

Tickets cost $?? and $?? for the 4 p.m. benefit in the big showroom at the Flamingo Las Vegas, 3555 Las Vegas Blvd. South. Call 733-3333.

Also today, the stage of UNLV's Artemus Ham Concert Hall will be crowded with the annual "76 Trombones + 4" fundraiser for scholarships. Jazz soloist Jiggs Whigham of the BBC Orchestra in London is a guest star for the concert hosted by Pete Barbutti.

Tickets cost $?? for the 2 p.m. event at 4505 S. Maryland Parkway. Call 895-2787.

-- Oct. 28, 2005
Copyright @ Las Vegas Review-Journal

Dancing Through Time
Las Vegas' history is center stage for a trio of ballets
By KEN WHITE
REVIEW-JOURNAL

[[[Zeb Nole embraces Yoo Mi Lee...

...and Joseph Kennedy dances to a Latin beat during rehearsals of "Neon Evolution."
Photo by Jane Kalinowsky.]]]

Las Vegas history gets the dance treatment this weekend as the Nevada Ballet Theatre presents "Neon Evolution."

The program, in the Judy Bayley Theatre at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, consists of three ballets by three choreographers.

Bruce Steivel, the company's artistic director, choreographed "Vegas: The Early Years," with the mob taking center stage; Greg Sample's "Sin-10-eo" is an often humorous look at Las Vegas danced to 10 popular tunes; and Sonia Dawkins created the Latin-influenced "Centennial Celebration." Music by Paolo A. Santos was commissioned for the works by Steivel and Dawkins.

Research into Las Vegas' past plays a heavy part in Steivel's ballet. He found "a lot of interesting stuff. I was sort of surprised. I knew the city got started when the Mafia moved in, but not to what extent."

The ballet begins with American Indians, who believed a spirit protected the town, and that it's still here. It then moves on to the story of Bugsy Siegel, who built the Flamingo, the first "carpet joint" on what is now the Strip, and his girlfriend, Virginia Hill.

"It was a very short period after him that the city blossomed," Steivel says. "He got it started."

Despite the mob's involvement in the city, Steivel says, "the people I talked to who were here then say it was one of the safest periods, if you were not involved in the Mafia."

Sample, a dancer in Celine Dion's "A New Day," uses songs by artists including Wayne Newton, Dean Martin and Tom Jones.

His ballet "may be what people perceive Las Vegas to be," Steivel says. It uses humor and slapstick to tell short stories about characters that can be found in the city.

Dawkins' ballet, meanwhile, "takes into account the Latin beat and the energy that comes from that kind of music," according to Steivel.

Dawkins is a faculty member at the Pacific Northwest Ballet and choreographs works for her company, Sonia Dawkins/Prism Dance Theatre.

The entire Nevada Ballet Theatre company is involved in the program, with the exception of Kyu Dong Kwak, the company's principal dancer, whose foot was broken during a recent rehearsal.

Oct. 20, 2005
Copyright @ Las Vegas Review-Journal

Officials return nudes to display at City Hall gallery
Artists express pleasure with restoration
By DAVID McGRATH SCHWARTZ
REVIEW-JOURNAL

Two nudes banned from a City Hall art gallery have charmed their way back on display. And they didn't even need to put on pasties.

The pastel drawings, winners in a city-sponsored contest for local artists, had been returned to the Bridge Gallery by Wednesday afternoon.

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"I'm pretty elated," said Stewart Freshwater, the Las Vegas artist who drew "Rose," showing the back of a sitting nude woman. "The city finally made the right decision."

Kristin Pinkerton, whose "GiGi" was the other picture taken down, said she had at least some faith restored in the way the city viewed artists.

"It's kind of heartening to know the city had at least a little bit of a change of heart and put it back up," said Pinkerton, whose drawing depicts a nude from the front with a strategically placed shawl. But, she added, "I don't know if anything would have happened if we didn't complain."

Las Vegas City Manager Doug Selby announced the restorations during Wednesday's City Council meeting.

"We weighed the pros and cons and deemed that it was an art gallery, and we will defend it as such," he said during a break in the meeting.

The works had hung in the gallery, which connects a parking garage to City Hall, until Selby received an anonymous complaint from a city employee who found them offensive.

Selby forwarded the complaint to the human resources department and city attorney's office to review. Human resources decided to remove the paintings, fearing a possible violation of Title VII, the federal law that protects employees from working in a hostile work environment.

Mayor Oscar Goodman said he was proud of the decision to put the artwork back up.

"These are beautiful paintings, and nothing is wrong with the human body, that's for sure," the mayor said.

Freshwater, who works in the Las Vegas Public Works Department, said he received assurances that the artwork would be kept up for a couple of weeks longer to make up for the time that the pieces lost from the public spotlight.

He said his faith in the city and their attitude to artists was "partially restored."

"I think maybe the public officials need to be awakened periodically (to) our First Amendment rights and what public space stands for," he said.

Oct. 19, 2005
Copyright @ Las Vegas Review-Journal

NUDE DRAWINGS: Art gets under city's skin
Anonymous e-mail leads to removal
By DAVID McGRATH SCHWARTZ
REVIEW-JOURNAL

Stewart Freshwater, a city employee by day and an art instructor by night, can’t understand the city’s decision to take down pastel drawings that depict nudes. Other employees have complained that the drawings should never have been taken down.
Photos by Jeff Scheid.

The wall is empty in the Bridge Gallery at City Hall where Stewart Freshwater’s pastel nude once hung.
It might be Sin City, but it's not Sin City Hall. Or even Mildly Titillating City Hall, for that matter.

The city of Las Vegas took down two pastel drawings of the female form after an employee made an anonymous complaint that the artwork was offensive.

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The offending drawings depicting nude women had won a city-sponsored contest for locals artists over 50 years old. The pastels had hung in the Bridge Gallery, which connects the parking garage to City Hall, for about a month before they were taken down two weeks ago.

The artists are baffled at the decision to remove the drawings, particularly, they say, because Las Vegas is covered in more revealing and explicit images on billboards, magazines and taxi cabs.

"These were both award-winning pastels which represented the human form in a very tasteful way," said Kristin Pinkerton, the artist who painted "GiGi." "There was nothing suggestive or sexual in nature about these two pieces of art."

The other artist, Stewart Freshwater, said, "I'm a little shocked, a little disturbed. This feels like a violation of the First Amendment." Freshwater, by day a city public works employee, teaches classes on painting nudes.

But the city defended its position that no nudes are good nudes. City Manager Doug Selby said the pictures were taken down because of fears that the city could be sued for violating Title VII, the federal law that protects employees from working in a hostile work environment.

Selby first received the complaint through an internal system that allows employees to e-mail questions or comments to him anonymously.

He then asked the human resources and the city attorney's office to look into the complaint. Human resources made the decision to take down the offending paintings, he said.

"The first reaction was prudent, considering the potential for lawsuits," Selby said.

Since then, though, more employees have complained that the drawings should never have been taken down. The city is reevaluating its position.

"We're reviewing the action taken, to see if they shouldn't be put back up," Selby said.

He wasn't sure when the decision would come down. "It isn't the most pressing issue in the city of Las Vegas. We're hoping to be diligent, and make a decision in the next couple of weeks, if not sooner."

The American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada ripped the city's action, saying the drawings should be put back well before the show ends on Oct. 27.

"The fact that the city caved in so readily shows both a total misunderstanding of Title VII, as well as a total lack of commitment to the ideals of free expression," said ACLU general counsel Allen Lichtenstein.

From the art side, Jerry Schefcik, director of Donna Beam Fine Art Gallery, at University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said the drawings were far from offensive, much less pornographic.

"These are figure studies, and you can trace them all the way back to pre-Renaissance," he said. "Artists are interested in the human form as a means of expressing the human condition."

Freshwater's "Rose" is of a nude seated woman's back. A few inches of the gluteal cleft is revealed. "GiGi" is a woman from the front view, her legs folded underneath her. Her bosoms are blurred and covered by a shawl. No nipples or genitalia are evident.

The Las Vegas Arts Commission and the Department of Leisure Services sponsored the art contest, which it called Celebrating Life!

Submissions hung at the Charleston Heights Arts Center between July 16 to Aug. 26, without complaint. Three judges picked the winning entries in six categories which were supposed to hang in the Bridge Gallery between Sept. 2 and Oct. 27.

"GiGi" placed first in pastels. "Rose" got second.

Less controversial fine art pieces, such as "Grand Rooster," "Winter and Summer Squash" and "Pincushions" remain. The spaces where Pinkerton's and Freshwater's artwork was hung are still bare.

Both artists want to see their work put back up, and fear the negative message this sends about Las Vegas' willingness to embrace art.

Both Freshwater and Selby had heard reports that the complainant was angry that he could not put up pictures of "pinups" in his cubicle. The person offended has not come forward.

"It's not only ironic because the city has designated itself as a city of asylum for censored writers, as an epicenter of free speech," said Gary Peck, ACLU's executive director. "But this is, after all, Las Vegas."

-- Oct. 14, 2005
Copyright @ Las Vegas Review-Journal

'Jekyll & Hyde' concert scheduled

The UNLV Performing Arts Center will present "Jekyll & Hyde: The Concert," featuring Rob Evan and Miss America 1998 Kate Shindle, the stars of the Broadway production, at 8 p.m. Oct. 22 as part of the New York Stage & Beyond series.

Frank Wildhorn's gothic thriller played on Broadway for four years.

"Jekyll & Hyde" is evocative of the battle between good and evil. Dr. Jekyll is determined to find the cure that will eliminate the evil and insane nature of man, so he develops an experimental drug and becomes the subject of his own experiment. Slowly he evolves into the monstrous Mr. Hyde.

Tickets to "Jekyll & Hyde: The Concert" cost $??, $?? and $?? and can be purchased at the Performing Arts Center Box Office at 896-2787 or by visiting pac.unlv.edu.

-- Sep. 16, 2005
Copyright @ Las Vegas Review-Journal

Julia Child musical set for Sunday

The Performing Arts Society of Nevada's Las Vegas Lyric Opera Company and the UNLV Opera Theater will present "Bon Appetit!" (the musical that visits Julia Child at work) at 2 p.m. Sunday at the Clark County Library Theater, 1401 E. Flamingo Road.

Tickets cost $10.

The comic musical is a tribute to Child and was first performed in 1989 at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. by actress Jean Stapleton. The music was composed by Lee Hoiby.

This tribute uses Child's own words from a TV program where she gave and demonstrated the recipe for chocolate cake. Christine Seitz, director of the UNLV Opera Theater, will sing the role of Child.

The second half of the program features the Act I finale of Mozart's comic masterpiece "School for Lover." UNLV Opera Theater participants Stephanie Thorpe, Jeanette Fontaine, Daniel Ibeling, Christy Jenkins, Kristopher J. Jordan and Christopher Reams will perform.

Seitz is stage director and pianist Gary C. Thomas, musical director, will provide the accompaniment.

Sunday, September 11, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

NEON SUNDAY: Medleys play The Orleans

Las Vegans have watched McKenna Medley grow up onstage. The singing daughter of Righteous Brother Bill Medley headlined at the Suncoast in 2003, when she was just 16 years old.

She's now sharing the stage at The Orleans with Bill, who worked hard to relaunch his solo act -- moving more in a bluesy, rock 'n' soul direction -- after the death of longtime singing partner Bobby Hatfield in November 2003.

Tickets cost $??.50 to $?? for the 8 p.m. show at 4500 W. Tropicana Ave. Call 365-7075.

-- BY MIKE WEATHERFORD

-- Sep. 02, 2005
Copyright @ Las Vegas Review-Journal

End of the Season

Mellencamp-Fogerty concert among those sending summer off in style
By MIKE WEATHERFORD
REVIEW-JOURNAL

[[[Las Vegas rings out the summer with a soundtrack including, above, Aretha Franklin, Donna Summer and John Mellencamp.]]]

[[[Donna Summer, Photo]]]

Tejano balladeer Marco Antonio Solis will serenade fans at the Aladdin on Saturday.

The "Young Guns of Comedy," including Earthquake, perform Sunday at the Aladdin.
Who better to share the last weekend of summer with than some iconic names in American music?

The three-day Labor Day weekend brings two queens -- Aretha Franklin and Donna Summer, exalted rulers of Soul and Disco -- and the teaming of Johns Fogerty and Mellencamp, two uncrowned kings of anthemic roots rock who are too Jeffersonian to wear a banner.

Perhaps because families in Clark County and many California school districts are already in back-to-business mode, Labor Day is often the least-crowded three-day weekend on the Las Vegas Strip.

This year, Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority officials expect 286,000 visitors for a 94 percent room occupancy. That would be up in actual number from last year's 279,000 visitors, but roughly the same occupancy because the Strip adds hotel rooms each year.

Aug. 26, 2005
Copyright @ Las Vegas Review-Journal

Puppets for Adults

'Avenue Q' offers a gay Republican puppet, and another who drops the F-bomb
By MIKE WEATHERFORD
REVIEW-JOURNAL

[[[Puppet designer Rick Lyon, left, with Nicky, and John Tartaglia, with Rod, are the two original "Avenue Q" cast members who came to Las Vegas to open the second production of the hit musical.]]]

What began as a proposed TV sendup of "Sesame Street" evolved into a Tony-winning musical with more heart than people might expect.

There comes a day when a lucky person finds the job for which he is uniquely qualified. For John Tartaglia, it was "Avenue Q."

Tartaglia spent more than five years as an off-camera puppeteer for "Sesame Street," but "never thought I'd earn a Tony nomination with a puppet on my hand."

Most of those drawn to puppetry, he explains, enjoy the anonymity that enables one to perform, yet still hide. The hit musical "Avenue Q" is the rare gig that lets him be both a human and puppet operator. "I love to be onstage myself. That's more organic to me than anything else."
........................................

-- Aug. 12, 2005
Copyright @ Las Vegas Review-Journal

Girl Gone Wild
Avril Lavigne is back from an African adventure spent dodging crazed monkeys
By MIKE KALIL
REVIEW-JOURNAL

Avril Lavigne, 20, was kicked out of a casino for gambling illegally during a recent trip to Las Vegas. Her game of choice? The money wheel.

When the Review-Journal spoke with Avril Lavigne in November, the pop-punk princess mostly talked about two things: her songwriting process and her disdain for Ashlee Simpson.

The newspaper caught up with her again last month, when Lavigne again mostly talked about two things: prior stops in Vegas, during which she gambled illegally, and a recent African safari she took with bandmates and tour crew.

Unless you've lived under a rock for the past three years, you've heard her ?ber-hit "Complicated" a gazillion times and have a good idea what Lavigne's music is all about.

So instead of more music talk, here's Lavigne, 20, relaying her excitement about the things she actually wanted to talk about in her strangely endearing Canadian Valley Girl dialect that features much use of "like," "y'know" and "Oh, my God!"

First up, Lavigne's most recent trip to Vegas to attend an awards show.

"I totally got kicked out of a casino," she says, laughing. "I hate gambling. It makes me bite my nails. I'm so-oooo nervous, even if I'm just gambling like 10 bucks or just a dollar in a slot machine. I can't stand it."

Her youthful appearance was definitely what prompted security to confront her, she says.

"It's because I look like a kid. Like, I'm kind of, like, pretty short. ... Especially if I'm not wearing makeup or anything. I look like I'm 11."

She had been playing the money wheel when she was ejected.

"But I went back and I went to another one and I was fine. I mean, I only got kicked out once, and I just used my fake ID for the other stuff. But there's no point, because if you win a bunch of money, you don't get it."

Unlike the nail-biting experience of wagering chump change, Lavigne relished the safari she took during a few days off after playing shows in South Africa.

"I was so scared. There were like geckos everywhere, y'know, the little lizards? And there was one in my freakin' cabin, but I couldn't do anything about it because they were everywhere. There's no fence around the premises."

She had one particularly scary wilderness encounter.

"Oh, my God! I was leaving my cabin to go walk up to the, what do you call it? ... Oh, the lodge.

"And monkeys. On the sidewalks. Hissing at me."

"I just couldn't even believe it. I was like, 'Is this OK that I'm two feet away from the monkeys? Are they gonna bite me?'

"They start screaming at me. Oh, my God! They were, like, everywhere hanging off the trees. And they were playing with me because they knew they were scaring me.

"Oh my God! What if you're in the middle of the woods and it's like their space and they can bite you? ...

"I'm like, 'What am I supposed to do? I'm by myself.'

"I had my video camera and I was totally videoing them. And then they start hissing at me, and I freak out. I started screaming and running back to my cabin. Oh, my God! There were like 15. They'll bite you. If you touch them, they'll attack you. ... They're in the wild.

"I run back and there's this thing that looks like a deer with big antlers that are all twirly, kinda like a deer-moose thing. I don't know what it's called." (Antelope, perhaps?) "It's, like, laying in the grass beside, like, five meters away from the cabin, and I'm going 'Uh, is this going to attack me?'

"So what I'm trying to say is, it's the real deal. It was the real deal."

Lavigne's guides taught her the chief rule of safari safety.

"They're like, stay in the vehicle, because once you get out, then you're an animal. If you stay in, they're not going to attack you."

Lavigne and company took both morning and night safaris. One featured a surprise from their guides.

"They're like, 'OK, it's snack time,' and we're like, 'Snacks?! Sweet!' And they stop, like, the safari truck thing, and they whip out, like, a whole bar. It was like wine and everything. And I'm like, 'Isn't this going to attract the lions and stuff?'

"It was fun. It was crazy. We had a drink and some nuts and some crackers and whatever and cookies."

Lavigne says she is an intensely curious person, and that her frequent inquiries of those around her often lead to changes in her thinking.

"I ask so many questions, and I'm asking the (safari guide) guy, 'So, have you ever had any problems? Has anyone ever got attacked or anything?' And he's, like, 'Yeah, a woman was actually killed by two lions.' So I'm sitting there, like, I better be careful."

Thursday, July 28, 2005
Copyright @ Las Vegas Review-Journal

Pay-for-play scandal entangles Celine Dion

By MIKE KALIL
REVIEW-JOURNAL

Celine Dion appears in her show, "A New Day... ."
REVIEW-JOURNAL

Celine Dion's record company sought to artificially boost her popularity in the months before her 2003 Caesars Palace debut by bribing radio stations nationwide to play her music, according to documents released this week as part of a burgeoning pay-for-play scandal rocking the music industry.

Sony BMG, the nation's second-largest record company, agreed Monday to stop bribing radio programmers and pay $10 million as part of an agreement springing from an investigation by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.

Calling the pay-for-play practice "pervasive," Spitzer suggested other industry giants still under investigation could face similar penalties.

The agreement between Spitzer and Sony BMG indicates that in most instances Sony BMG bribed radio programmers with cash or electronics to play songs by artists such as Good Charlotte, Gretchen Wilson and Audioslave.

But in Dion's case, the company used a more elaborate scheme that New York prosecutors called "equally deceptive" to the public, according to the agreement.

Although Dion has sold some 140 million records worldwide, by late 2002 she had gone five years without a releasing a hit song.

According to the settlement, around that time Sony BMG's Epic Records struck deals with stations around the country to play two of her new tracks a certain number of times each week.

In exchange, Epic financed contests where those stations' listeners could win trips to Las Vegas, rooms at Caesars and concert tickets to see her show, "A New Day... ."

One e-mail Spitzer's office released Monday indicates Dion was personally involved in the contest, but that could not be confirmed this week.

"There will be one grand prize (meet Celine, play blackjack with Celine, have lunch with Celine)," an Epic records employee wrote to Infinity Broadcasting, which operates 180 stations nationwide.

Attempts to reach Dion for comment were not successful Wednesday. A spokeswoman for "A New Day..." said the singer and her management representatives were traveling and could not be reached.

The type of promotional support offered to those willing to play Dion songs can be even more enticing to stations than a cash bribe because "it lowers overhead, draws listeners and boosts ratings," the settlement states. "This support influences programming decisions, a fact not disclosed to consumers."

A 1960 federal law bars record companies from offering undisclosed financial incentives in exchange for airplay, a key driver of an artists' record sales. During radio scandals that unfolded decades ago, the practice was called "payola," a contraction of "pay" and "Victrola," the old wind-up record player.

"Sony BMG has provided this support to exert the same influence over the stations' airplay decisions as when a bribe goes directly into a station employee's pocket," the settlement states. "The practice is equally deceptive."

In one e-mail released by Spitzer on Monday, an unnamed Epic promotions employee complains that a radio station wasn't giving Dion's song proper exposure. The station only played Dion's "I Drove All Night" during late night hours, when fewer people were listening.

The e-mail states, "Ok, here it is in black and white and it's serious: if a radio station got a flyaway to a Celine show in Las Vegas for (adding Dion's song to its playlist), and they're playing the song all in overnights, they are not getting the flyaway. Please fix the overnight rotations immediately."

On Monday, Sony BMG acknowledged in a statement that some of its employees had engaged in "wrong and improper" practices, but did not say whether it fired or disciplined any of those employees.

It is not clear whether the people who won the trips to Las Vegas were always listeners.

Spitzer's investigation found Sony BMG gave gifts to radio station employees by disguising them as contest prizes going to a listener.

"Sony BMG promotion department employees go to considerable lengths to conceal such fraudulent transactions within Sony BMG's accounting systems," the settlement document states.

"Because the law requires Sony BMG to record a winner name and social security number for each contest prize in excess of $600, Sony BMG employees have solicited false `winner' names and social security numbers from the radio programmers who in actuality received the `prize.' "

-- Jul. 15, 2005
Copyright @ Las Vegas Review-Journal

Maximum Exposure
The girls of 'Zumanity' have turned to Playboy to help promote the show
By MIKE WEATHERFORD
REVIEW-JOURNAL

Three of the "Zumanity" women featured in Playboy have become friends. From left, Vanessa Convery, Wassa Coulibaly and Elena Gatilova.
Photo by Ralph Fountain.
A Playboy photo shoot can be unnerving. But the cast members of "Zumanity" have more than a little experience with public nudity.

"I'm a classical ballerina. I have to say it wasn't an easy transition," Vanessa Convery says. "I remember our very first day of rehearsal. Debra Brown (the show's original choreographer), says, 'OK everybody, let's take our tops off and do the orgy scene.' ''

"You can imagine, stunned faces. Everybody was like, 'She's got to be kidding. She's got to be joking.' But maybe it was the best way for us to all get comfortable, to get to know each other."

Convery restages her topless "milk bath" sequence with Ugo Mazinwosu for an eight-page "Zumanity" photo spread in the latest Playboy (which has an August cover date, but is already on sale). She is one of 10 female cast members baring all for the magazine feature Cirque pursued to help brand "Zumanity," the erotic cabaret revue subtitled "Another Side of Cirque du Soleil." (The women will be signing copies of the magazine from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. today in the "Zumanity" souvenir store at New York-New York, and from 3 to 5 p.m. Saturday in the Playboy Concept Boutique in the Forum Shops at Caesars.)

The photos were taken in the "Zumanity" theater this past summer by veteran lensman Stephen Wayda. Cirque began negotiating for the piece after Hugh Hefner attended the show's official debut in September 2003. The layout is true to the exotic, international aesthetic of "Zumanity" and so marks a change of pace from Playboy's Midwestern girl-next-door fantasies.

The photos are also a reminder of the show's unusual reverse creation. Instead of auditioning for specific roles, many performers were cast with no predetermined purpose. "Because there are 50 different characters, they were chosen for the way they look and what they can do ... They are 50 gorgeous people," says artistic director Ria Martens.

All Cirque shows are drawn from different nationalities, but in the others "you don't see that, because you have those big group acts where they all kind of dress the same," Martens notes. "Zumanity" costume designer Thierry Mugler "brought out the best of the personality. A specific thing that they already had."

Among those featured in Playboy, Wassa Coulibaly was born in Senegal and performed with an African dance troupe before auditioning for "Zumanity" in Los Angeles. Elena Gatilova was a Ukrainian gymnast who now stars in one of the show's wittiest sequences, doing a striptease on top of a TV set in a futile attempt to divert the men's attention from a football game.

Gatilova confesses that at first she didn't get the joke -- she didn't even speak much English. Now, says Coulibaly, "More and more we just get closer. We feel like we're home, we're family. We do things together."

"We live here almost," Gatilova says.

Convery was a principal dancer with Les Ballet Jazz de Montreal and New York's Feld Ballet, but "Zumanity" inspired her to come up with the milk bath idea on her own.

"I wanted to reach out to the audience members. I wanted them to feel something," she says. "I wanted them to come to the show and leave with a smile on their faces and say, 'You know what? That was very kinky. That was very sexy. I want to try that.' "

"I think women are such beautiful, sensual creatures. I think women are always looking to have fun," she adds. "They want to make love, but they want to have fun as well. If I can inspire a woman to maybe come a little bit out of her shell, then I feel like I really did my job tonight."

The milk bath sequence is one of the standout sequences of "Zumanity" that survived from its earliest days. The backward creation process had its merits, but also fueled backstage chaos in the formative days. Creative turnover was evident in the early product, where a few moments of brilliance were surrounded by a lot of dead-end streets.

Enter Martens, the new artistic director who brought the focus of her dance background to the show a full year after it opened. "It was a show that needed to come together as a whole," says the Belgian director. "There were strong points that were already there, but the things around them needed to be developed more. ... The artists had to take the next step."

Martens began studying in her teenage years with Lynn Simonson's Jazz Dance Theatre. "Because I came from their background -- they're such strong individual artists and dancers more than in any other (Cirque) show -- I knew where they were coming from. What I needed from them I could go and get because I speak their language."

Now, "I feel like the show has a really good base, that artists are challenged in one way or the other and we can grow from there," she says. "It always is a work-in-progress and there is continuous change."

Jul. 08, 2005
Copyright @ Las Vegas Review-Journal

SHOW REVIEW: Finding Its Rhythm

After nearly a year, 'Havana Night Club' seems more at ease

By MIKE WEATHERFORD
REVIEW-JOURNAL

An engaging young cast that includes narrator Jose David Del Valle, above, helps "Havana Night Club" overcome language barriers and a cliched look at the nightclub scene, below, that Las Vegas and Havana shared in the 1950s.

It's hard to separate the substance from the symbolism of "Havana Night Club."

This past summer, the backstage drama of getting the Cuban revue to the United States overshadowed the show itself. This summer, as "Havana" closes in on a one-year anniversary, news clips about the troupe's eventual defection from Cuba serve as a video pre-show.

That's predictable for a show willing to use "The Show Cuba Didn't Want You To See" as a catch phrase for billboards. The visa issues delaying its arrival were considerably more complicated -- tied as much to the U.S government's unpredictable actions as Cuba's -- but you can't blame the producer for tapping into the emotion that colors all Cuban-U.S relationships.

When "Havana" finally opened, it was nearly a month late and missing part of its cast. But there was a palpable sense of triumph that swept the audience to its feet and swept aside some of the more awkward moments of a revue denied its rehearsal time.

Now that the performers have collectively defected from Cuba and settled on the Strip, the awkwardness has largely disappeared. But so has the drama surrounding that harried arrival. At least until the audience is prodded. "It's great to finally be able to perform here in the USA," narrator Jose David Del Valle announces at the curtain call. Then they stand up.

But this is a revue that can't help but mean more to its Spanish-speaking audience, try as it might to be universally accessible.

With so many shows duking it out for nightly attention on the Strip, it's no bad thing for "Havana" to have found a niche with Latin ticketbuyers who dominated the audience on a recent night. They responded to the lyrics, recognized some of the music and laughed in all the right places.

For those of us who should have worked harder to retain our college Spanish, the show has its repetitive stretches and could stand a few more tranquil moments to vary that busy, busy pacing. But the rhythms are universal, and the four-piece horn section is phenomenal. A contagious goodwill still wins out in the end. You like these smiling, energetic young people even if you don't know much about them.

The revue hasn't changed its four-segment structure. It first explores Cuba's African and Spanish heritage, before settling in for a long, titular salute to the nightclubs of the '40s and '50s. It concludes with a visit to "the young Cuba" including a fun comic dance piece with wooden sandals.

Producer Nicole Durr has tinkered within the segments, and the first two seem to flow better. The jungle scene still strikes an awkward balance between the literal and the evocative, but does allow for a theatrical opening that keeps the band hidden behind a scrim. It builds to a forceful adagio between Yoandra Martinez and lead male dancer Dennis Bain, set to a gorgeous classical piece by the show's musical director, Adrian Ortega.

(It might help for the Stardust's doormen to run off a stack of an explanatory program sheet available in the show's press materials and slip it to gringos when they seat them. The sheet explains that the adagio is based on the Cuban folk tale of fabled hunter Ochosi and the exotic bird who captivates him.)

The nightclub segment seems a bit too familiar, almost like a "salute to Cuba" from some other Vegas revue. This could be the place to cave in and make more welcoming gestures to non-Latin audiences, perhaps with English lyrics or more familiar melodies to illustrate the rumba and cha-cha. Still, the pure physicality of the dancing triumphs when Bain does the splits with one leg on each of two giant prop congas.

"Havana" already has displayed tenacious survival skills, but its future is guaranteed at the Stardust only through Labor Day. Wherever "Havana" goes, Durr should remember its success is more about people than perception.

-- Jun. 24, 2005
Copyright @ Las Vegas Review-Journal

Lighter Side of Utah
Shakespearean Festival balances 'Doctor Faustus' with less-dark selections
By KEN WHITE
REVIEW-JOURNAL

[[[James Ivens plays the lutar for patrons during the Utah Shakespearean Festival's Greenshow.
Ben Livingston, top, as Mephistopheles and Donald Sage Mackay as Doctor John Faustus star in the Utah Shakespearean Festival's production of "Doctor Faustus." The show's dark themes led to an overall lightening of the summer schedule.]]]

Putting together the lineup for the Utah Shakespearean Festival is all about balance, said executive director and festival founder Fred C. Adams.

This year's summer festival, which runs through Sept. 3 on the campus of Southern Utah University in Cedar City, has lighter fare overall, thanks to the festival's production of Christopher Marlowe's "Doctor Faustus" tipping the scales to the dark side.

By contrast, the Shakespeare offerings in the summer season include "Love's Labour's Lost," "Romeo and Juliet" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream," as well as the musical "Camelot" and the Irish tragicomedy "Stones in His Pockets."

"Doctor Faustus" is the story of a man who finds himself struggling with himself and the devil's henchman, Mephistopheles.

"This is the oldest 'Faustus,' " Adams said. "Marlowe had heard a German version of the story, and he wrote it into dramatic form, and he rewrote it later" into yet another version.

The festival is using Marlowe's first version. The second version had more special effects, Adams said, and it was "bloodier."

Director Howard Jensen guides a cast that includes Donald Sage Mackay as Faustus and Ben Livingston as Mephistopheles.

"We try to keep in the framework of our mission statement," of giving audiences a good sampling of the classics and "theater that makes a difference," Adams said.

Even though "Romeo and Juliet" ends badly for the lovesick couple, it's still not as dark as the average Shakespearean tragedy, such as "Macbeth" or "Hamlet."

Writing for the theater in Shakespeare's time was not much different than writing for a sitcom today, Adams said.

"They had to grind them out, and write in committee, and rewrite," Adams said. "In some ways it was similar to our times. They had to fill the theater, and they wrote the bloodiest, loudest, most daring plays."

On the lighter side is "A Midsummer Night's Dream," directed by Kathleen F. Conlin, who directed "Morning's at Seven" last season. She has been the festival's casting director for 15 years, and three years ago was named an associate artistic director.

"It's lighter, but there are undertones," Conlin said.

"A Midsummer Night's Dream" is about the lives of four confused lovers that intertwine with the magical feud of the fairy kingdom's King Oberon and Queen Titania. Meanwhile, Puck manages to scatter his love potion in all the wrong places, and there's a chaotic play rehearsal by a group of rustic peasants.

Conlin said that of all the plays being produced this year, she was most intrigued by "A Midsummer Night's Dream," partly because of its spiritual side, and it enables Conlin to continue "examining what you can do with Shakespeare indoors. Outdoors, there's an expectation of simplicity. You can also use the darkness and the wind. Indoors you have to manufacture those elements."

The cast includes Anne Newhall as Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons; Michael Brusasco as Lysander; Ashley Smith as Demetrius; Christine Williams as Hermia; Tiffany Scott as Helena; John Tillotson as Bottom; Corliss Preston as Puck; Michael Sharon as Oberon; and Newhall also in the role of Titania.

Here's a rundown of the other plays on tap at the Festival:

n "Romeo and Juliet," a perennial favorite, is the story of young Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet, two star-crossed lovers from feuding families. It stars Paul Hurley as Romeo, Tiffany Scott as Juliet, Joe Cronin as Montague and Phil Hubbard as Capulet. It's performed in the Adams Shakespearean Theatre.

n "Love's Labour's Lost," directed by Timothy Douglas, takes place in the peaceful court of King Ferdinand, where he and his idealistic friends have resolved to dedicate themselves to three years of fasting, study and complete abstinence from women. All is peaceful until the arrival of the beautiful princess of France and her ladies. It stars Lea CoCo as Ferdinand; Brian Normoyle as Longaville; Matthew-Lee Erlbach as Dumaine; David Ivers as Berowne; and Melinda Pfundstein as the princess of France. It can be seen in the Adams Shakespearean Theatre.

n "Camelot," directed by Brad Carroll, is a place where chivalry, honor and romance flourished, at least until the arrival of Lancelot, who brings unexpected complications to the court of King Arthur and his beautiful Queen Guinevere. With music by Frederick Loewe and lyrics and book by Alan Jay Lerner, the retelling of the Arthurian legend features such songs as "If Ever I Would Leave You" and "Camelot." It stars Peter Sham as Merlyn, Brian Vaughn as Arthur, Christine Williams as Guenevere, and Michael Sharon as Lancelot. It will be performed in the Randall L. Jones Theatre.

n The Irish tragicomedy "Stones in His Pockets," written by Marie Jones and directed by J.R. Sullivan, shows what can happen when a Hollywood film crew moves to a rural Irish village to shoot its next blockbuster. Jake and Charlie are two of many extras hired for the movie and bounce from the film shoot to the catering table, from a glamorous starlet's trailer to the pub where the locals and Hollywood crew all gather. The adult-themed, two-character production stars David Ivers and Brian Vaughn. "Stones" is performed in the Randall L. Jones Theatre.

n The festival's Greenshow, a free performance of song and dance, takes place each night, and the Royal Feaste offers dinner and entertainment four times a week.

THE FALL SEASON

Three more plays are scheduled Sept. 22-Oct. 29 in the Randall L. Jones Theatre as part of the Utah Shakespearean Festival’s fall season.

Shakespeare’s "All’s Well That Ends Well," directed by J.R. Sullivan, tells of the complications that arise when the king forces young Count Bertram to marry the orphaned Helena. He vows never to love her or to consummate the marriage, unless Helena can complete a seemingly impossible task.

"Pippin," directed by Marc Robin, with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz, relates the quest of the fabled Emperor Charlemagne’s son, who is trying to find his true calling and fulfillment in life. His search leads him through war, politics and love.

"The Foreigner," written by Larry Shue and directed by Paul Barnes, is a comedic recounting of what happens when two Englishmen, Froggy and Charlie, arrive in a rural Georgia fishing lodge. When others at the lodge try to talk to the pathologically shy Charlie, he doesn’t respond. Froggy, in order to make things easier for his shy friend, claims that Charlie is from an exotic foreign country and doesn’t speak English. With everyone thinking he can’t understand them, he becomes the unwilling witness to bizarre schemes, mistaken identities and evil villains.

-- Jun. 17, 2005
Copyright @ Las Vegas Review-Journal

MOVIE REVIEW: 'Mad Hot Ballroom'

Dance Fever: The inspiring documentary 'Mad Hot Ballroom' will have you on your feet
By CAROL CLING
REVIEW-JOURNAL

***Fifth-grade partners Wilson Castillo and Jatnna Toribio, from P.S. 115 in Washington Heights, rehearse their tango before competing with other New York City students in "Mad Hot Ballroom." (Photo.)

Those searching for the perfect feel-good summer movie will go mad for "Mad Hot Ballroom."

An inspiring, illuminating and just plain delightful documentary set in the gritty wonderland of New York City, it focuses on an unlikely but irresistible cast of characters: fifth-graders learning to tango, foxtrot and merengue.

Students at more than 60 New York City public schools participate in Dancing Classrooms, sponsored by American Ballroom Theater, which provides semester-long dance classes culminating in a citywide competition dubbed "Colors of the Rainbow."

The title refers to the colors by which judges identify the different dancing teams. Yet it's also an apt description of "Mad Hot Ballroom's" culturally diverse cast of characters (and I do mean characters), all of whom learn that they share far more than dance steps while training for the big competition. .....
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