Backstage peeks back with Cirque Week

It’s easy to spot the National Finals Rodeo fans who will show up in town next week. But the 2,000 or more die-hard Cirque du Soleil fans here for Cirque Week aren’t so easily ID’d by a mere cowboy hat.

A pastel bodysuit, maybe? We shall see.

But a third year of Cirque Week seems to lock in a tradition for the Cirque-sponsored fan gathering, which starts Saturday and runs through Dec. 8.

Advance sales already have topped last year’s final attendance, says Lou D’Angeli, Cirque’s director of marketing and public relations. Various ticket packages, ranging from $150 to $540, mix-and-match the shows with a daily panel or tour, such as “O – Behind the Water” and “Zarkana 101.”

The event stops short of the usual model for fan gatherings such as Comic-Con by spreading out the special events and limiting them to one per day. It would be a long hotel stay for anyone out of town to attend all of them.

Still, Cirque Week is turning into a strong promotion for what is otherwise a challenging month for selling show tickets.

“There’s no reason to do it (at a time) when everyone’s in town,” D’Angeli says. “We want to make it right for everybody, our (hotel) partners, too.”

The events include two advance screenings of the 3-D Cirque movie “Worlds Away,” which opens to the general public Dec. 21. Both the movie and Cirque Week itself share a common goal of branding the Las Vegas titles.

“Effective next year we’re going to have eight shows in the market with eight different identities,” D’Angeli says. “Our job is to make those eight identities come to life. That’s what Cirque Week does, is give people more than just the show.

“There are ways to relate to our shows above and beyond just the content,” he says. “Everyone is fascinated by what happens behind the scenes.” …

There are two new shows in town, if you can avoid confusing the magician who sings from the Broadway singers who don’t do illusions. Tommy Wind is the second show at the new Boulevard Theater, while “The Phat Pack” settles into the Plaza.

Last month I wrote about magician Nathan Burton roping his mom and sister into a proposed reality show called “Family Magic.” It’s hard to say whether Wind will be a formidable competitor for ticket sales, but he’s going head-to-head with the family angle.

Wind, aka Tommy Riccardo, works both his dad (also named Tommy) and his mom, Arlene, into the act at the former nightclub you might remember as Utopia or Empire Ballroom.

But after launching the show for its “soft opening” last week, Wind is shutting it down again after Saturday and reopening Dec. 11. Why?

He’s headed back to New York to help the family move his 88-year-old grandfather to town. His grandfather wants to be at the show, if not in the show, and this is symbolic to the 22-year-old magician.

“He started me with my first trick,” Wind says of a vanishing handkerchief.

Wind’s father is his manager, but previously helmed a dance and wedding band in Staten Island, N.Y. So the young Tommy grew up around both music and magic and “never was able to choose.”

As you might guess from his “Musical Illusionist” billing, he never had to. Wind hopes to distinguish his magic show by singing, dancing and playing instruments. At one point, he covers “Bossa Nova Baby.”

Turns out that Wind’s actual Las Vegas debut was as a kid, around 2000 at the Elvis-A-Rama museum. He performed a “Little Elvis” act under the handle of Tommy John. This guy is just full of surprises.

No surprises with “The Phat Pack,” unless the name confuses those hoping for a Rat Pack tribute show. The three singers and alumni of the bygone “Phantom” production at The Venetian hope to play down the booze jokes and focus on their musical theater credentials.

Ted Keegan toured as the “Phantom of the Opera” and Randal Keith spent nine years touring as Jean Valjean in “Les Miserables.” Bruce Ewing was known to locals from his years in “Forever Plaid” before he joined The Venetian’s “Phantom.”

The new show takes its format more from “Plaid,” powered by the piano of Joey Singer, longtime musical director for Debbie Reynolds. It opens today and plays Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays at 5 and 7 p.m. at the Plaza. …

Ewing says “The Phat Pack” will introduce a segment of Christmas music once it gets settled in, but there are other options in the meantime.

“Broadway Celebration” at New York-New York has morphed into “Christmas in New York,” another in the stable of rotating show titles from producer David King. A visit from Santa Claus is promised in the run through Dec. 30.

Las Vegas comedian and tribute artist Rick Michel puts Christmas hats on his Rat Pack show “Drinkin’ Singin’ and Swingin’ ” (literally, in the case of the poster art; someone drew on the hats) Dec. 7 and 8 at the Cannery.

And on Dec. 16, retro chanteuse Laura Shaffer enlists the like-minded Art Vargas for the holiday version of her “Nightingale’s Nest,” which is kind of a double branding for The Copa Room at The Bootlegger Bistro.

The Copa Room is the Bootlegger’s special events annex, once operated by an independent contractor. Shaffer and others now “four-wall” the room directly from management.

Shaffer and bandleader Chandler Judkins have been getting traction for their vintage-themed shows. And now Bruce Harper – whom both have worked with – has staked out Monday nights there for concert jazz with his 16-piece big band.

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