The Show is UP: Rita at the 'Palooza!

Sorry we're late this week! It was just a little crazy, some minor news around here, you know. So here we go. You can click on the date below to get it to play or right-click on it to download it to listen at your leisure. Or, of course, subscribe for free in iTunes or Zune. -sf

Nov. 2: Dancing With Rita At The ‘Palooza

She’s danced on Broadway, told jokes in Carnegie Hall and, of course, headlined in Vegas for nearly a decade. And now, Rita Rudner is about to reach her career apex, appearing with us at the Go Pool at the Flamingo Las Vegas. That’s right, we’re LIVE at the third annual Vegas Podcast-a-Palooza to chat up the Harrah’s Las Vegas comedienne and her husband about their careers, their politics and much more. Also, when will Rita be at Harrah’s? Answer: Probably sooner than later.

In Banter: Lion King is leaving, Lotus of Siam is exported, Las Vegans are out of their minds, Venetian-Palazzo checks into a new alliance and more.

Links to stuff discussed:

Rita Rudner’s website
Get tickets for Rita Rudner at Harrah’s Las Vegas
See Rita’s funny Harry Reid ad, “Crazy Juice”
Video of Rita’s routine for Obama at Caesars Palace
VegasHappensHere.Com interpretation of The Lion King closure
Cirque’s announcement of its Michael Jackson arena show, Immortal
Mike Weatherford’s Criss Angel piece
Lotus of Siam heads to New York City
The Venetian-Palazzo joins the InterContinental Alliance
VegasTripping.Com on “Harmonizing” the St. Regis
The website for the Jabbawockeez at Monte Carlo
The Daily Beast says Vegas is the dumbest city in America
Steve’s pieces on Shelley Berkley for Tablet and the Weekly

A Cool -- as in FREEZING -- Video

Yes, this is a bit promotional. But it's also pretty fun to watch -- the folks at Minus 5, the frigid bar at Mandalay Bay, have created Lion King ice sculpture. I just got an email that they'll be unveiling an Oscar Goodman ice sculpture, too, next week. I don't know if they keep these sculptures around or what. Is Minus 5 going to become an icy version of Madame Tussaud's?



Also noteworthy is that this video was produced for 702.tv, a new Vegas video site from the Greenspun Media Group folks that received a load of hype in today's Las Vegas Sun. I haven't had the time to really explore it, but I will do so soon.

One Actress's Views of The Lion King

On this week's podcast, we have a brief interview with former Mamma Mia! star Carol Linnea Johnson about her band, the Hot Club of Las Vegas. But I also thought this exchange, which is on the audio, is interesting as we continue to debate whether The Lion King, which replaced MM!, is a good Vegas idea.

CLJ: Ultimately, it is a cartoon. People like to say, ‘Well The Lion King is Hamlet.’ And I say, well, you know, a dead father, a vengeful stepfather… but it’s not Hamlet. It’s a cartoon. And it’s beautifully realized but it’s a cartoon. It’ll be interesting to see if it’s able to corner a family market maybe that no other show does.

TheStripPodcast: But it’s not your expectation that it’s going to play to adults necessarily? I mean, it’ll play to adults bringing children, but…

CLJ: Well, they’ll love it. But I doubt really highly that if you’re going to spend $250 on tickets for something and you’re going to take a date, the Lion King might not be your first choice.

TheStripPodcast: Meow!

CLJ: Hey, who knows, maybe it’s hot! Maybe it’s all those gorgeous singers and hot bodies dancing as gazelles might really be the thing. It might be the new hot date ticket!

You can hear the entire 8-minute discussion starting at around minute-marker 59 on this week's episode.

The Show is UP: Marie Osmond, Part I

Off to the tax lady now. Enjoy the show! Click on the date below to listen or right-click and save to your computer. Or subscribe (it's free!) via the iTunes link or via the Zune link. Enjoy.

April 2: Marie Osmond, Part I

She’s a little bit country and a little bit, well, you know the rest. But she’s also now a big bit of a Strip headliner. Marie Osmond, she of the gigantic gleaming smile stretched across the Flamingo, joins us this hour to talk about show business nepotism, performing with everyone from Groucho Marx to Snoop Dogg and the night she and Donny performed their Vegas show in the dark.

In Banter: Freaks at O'Sheas, MGM drama, Follies bye- bye, Vegas impersonator jailed in Suriname.

Links to stuff mentioned:

Tickets for the Donny and Marie show
The 2009 results of the R-J’s Best of Las Vegas survey
The VegasHappensHere.Com post on the mayoral chips for Airmen
The website for SeaWorld’s Military Program
Sites for Minskoff and Mandalay theaters, both of which now house The Lion King
KNPR, the Las Vegas NPR member station
A Las Vegas Sun piece on Freaks, a gross new show at O’Sheas
VegasHappensHere.Com on MGM making their payment
MGM Mirage CEO Jim Murren’s letter to employees
News on Hooters, Riviera and Bally’s closing its sportsbook until September
Mike Weatherford’s coverage of the closure of Folies Bergere at the Tropicana
Gaming Today’s Monti Rock III on Bobby Slayton’s Trop deal
Norm Clarke’s coverage of the Toni Braxton impersonator jailed in Suriname

This Week's LVW Col: The Lion King

Here's this week's Las Vegas Weekly column, the first of at least two based on my NYC trip in December. Happy New Year's Eve everyone!

Can You Feel The Length Tonight?

The Lion King has a shot at success here - but its running time could kill it

By STEVE FRIESS

My 9-year-old niece sat next to me at the Minskoff Theatre in New York City, utterly enthralled. Her widened eyes were glued to the visual feast before her, the mammoth puppets and the ebullient, multiethnic cast performing colorful, energetic song-and-dance numbers, the Elton John/Tim Rice score.

A few seats away from her, though, was a slightly different story. A middle-aged couple from Ohio watched at first attentively and then, as time went on, with some impatience. The woman, in fact, dug out her program and opened it to the page with the list of songs, trying to catch a little bit of light so she could figure out how many were left. I had made her acquaintance before the show started because she complimented my niece on her outfit, and so at intermission I wondered how she liked the show.

“Oh, it’s wonderful,” she said, “but maybe a little bit too long for me.”

The show, of course, was The Lion King, the production that aspires to be Las Vegas’ Next Big Thing when it arrives this spring at the Mandalay Bay. Along with the Cirque du Soleil Elvis-scored show coming to CityCenter, The Lion King is one of only two major entertainment premieres now on the 2009 calendar for the Strip. (Okay, there’s three if you’re willing to count that Scary Spice stripper show coming to the Planet Hollywood, but I’m not.)

Whenever a Broadway show is heading to Vegas, I like to get out and see it in its native habitat, New York. That way, I have a baseline to compare the quality of the performances and changes in the staging of the Vegas edition when it arrives.

And, of course, I get to begin to judge whether it’s going to succeed or fail in Las Vegas.

Read the rest HERE

It's official: The Lion King Coming To Vegas

Mike Weatherford had this scoop last week, but MGM Mirage announced for real today in this press release that Disney's Lion King is setting down paws at Mandalay Bay in May 2009 instead of replacing Mamma Mia! with yet another Cirque show.

You're going to read a lot of yammering about how this is part of a swerve back towards family-friendly Vegas which allegedly flamed out in the mid-1990s. And yet there's been more than enough geared to families -- four of the existing Cirque shows, all those magic shows, almost all those Broadway shows, all those roller coasters, all those animal attractions -- for some time. It's simplistic media shorthand to view Vegas offerings as one thing or another; there's no way for this city to be successful by catering to one sort of customer.

I suspect this will be a pretty smart fit for all the reasons that Phantom works: Everyone knows and loves the music and story. And Lion King has one more thing going for it; while there have been tours of the show, for sure, it doesn't feel done to death. There's no place other than New York in North America to see it, either.

The release says: "Mandalay Bay's production of THE LION KING will be virtually identical to the other companies seen around the globe and will be staged with all of the same spectacular music, sets, and costumes that have made it a worldwide phenomenon."

It's not clear whether there's any wiggle room in that statement to cut the show down from its nearly 3-hour original running time, intermission included.