Hypnotic Christmas display suits Savard’s house

You don’t have to wait for the new owner to restore Liberace’s mansion. Vegas show people are out in the suburbs, from a hypnotic light show to zombie Christmas carols.

In the old days of Vegas, people knew where a lot of entertainers lived. Wayne Newton, Liberace, Redd Foxx, even B.B. King.

Now everyone can find out anyone’s address on the Internet, but few entertainers welcome the attention. Except for hypnotist Marc Savard, who gives us 88,000 reasons to drive by his house at 1420 E. Robindale Road.

This is the third year Savard has put on a synchronized Christmas light show, more for three of his daughters (the fourth is an infant, too young to care) than for show promotion. “I don’t want to be out there handing out vouchers,” he says.

Those who have been hypnotized into doing the big nasty with blow-up dolls now can turn the tables and gawk at the hypnotist doing scandalous things such as taking out his trash. One lady spotted Savard doing just that, he says, and offered to make cookies for his family because she thought the light show was so cool.

And Savard didn’t just hire it done. He and three friends spent four eight-hour days putting up the lights. But it’s programming them to music that really takes time; three to four hours for every minute of music.

Worth it to hear “Wrecking Ball”? It is for him to see his daughters dancing in the driveway. “The gift of smiling,” he says. …

You say it was fine and good that there were a bunch of concerts and benefits last weekend, but your company arrives this weekend.

Not to worry, Murray has you covered. The magician with the vertical hair offers “Murray’s Magical Holiday Spectacular” at 7 p.m. Saturday at the Starbright Theatre out Sun City Summerlin way, 2215 Thomas Ryan Blvd. Tickets are $15 for residents, $18 for nonresidents for a show that includes fellow magicians Mark Bennick and Chris Randall, singer Peter Pavone, violinist Lydia Ansel and dance numbers.

Murray (Sawchuck) will take a break from his afternoon show at the Tropicana’s Laugh Factory starting Jan. 5, performing on the road until his return March 1.

Murray’s roommate, comedian Gallagher, wraps up his Laugh Factory residency on Dec. 30, with no return date announced for the watermelon man. …

Another place to make visitors think you’re a plugged-in local with a kind heart: Anne Martinez, a lead singer in “Dancing Queen,” hosts a musical Toys for Tots drive at 10 p.m. Friday at Kenny Davidsen’s Celebrity Piano Bar at the Tuscany, 255 E. Flamingo Road.

Expect to see singers and instrumentalists from the likes of “Pin Up” and “Vegas! The Show.” …

There will be blood for Christmas, and then a lot more of it in January.

Penn &Teller are into the 13th year of their “13 Bloody Days of Christmas” promotion, a blood drive that offers two free show tickets to those who donate to United Blood Services between now and Dec. 31.

After Penn Jillette made a cottage industry out of atheism with his book “God, No!” it probably won’t surprise you that the duo will be the rare Las Vegas headline act to perform both on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

The cast of “Evil Dead The Musical” will go anywhere and do anything to promote the show, whether it’s comic book conventions or viewing parties for “The Walking Dead.”

But Monday might bring the group’s strangest outreach ever, simply because it’s, well, normal.

The cast will perform Christmas carols at 8 p.m. Monday at the Opportunity Village Magical Forest, 6300 W. Oakey Blvd. “We don’t want to scare the kids with zombies,” producer Sirc Michaels says, so the cast will stick to black T-shirts with the show logo. The cast performs in character so often, “we’re excited about being asked to participate in this fashion,” he adds.

Michaels will have plenty to talk about by late January when the campy musical moves upstairs into a newly opened venue at the V Theater in the Miracle Mile Shops at Planet Hollywood. “Evil Dead” will step up to four shows each week instead of two, and “the room was designed knowing we would be moving in, so there is a more comfortable fit as far as our blood delivery systems,” Michaels says. The new setup will “make it rain blood on our audience rather than have blood spray from the sides.”

Don’t expect any of this before Jan. 17 at the absolute earliest. But the move will eventually include “Evil Dead” weddings and a cast album, the first official one since the original off-Broadway cast recording. …

Cuban-born pop star Jon Secada made no secret of his desire to play Las Vegas when he guested at last summer’s Golden Rainbow benefit.

Today he may move a step closer with an invited-audience showcase at Wynn Las Vegas.

Producer Bill Edwards, who staged the Cheap Trick orchestral “Sgt. Pepper Live” in 2009 and 2010, is behind the enterprise with some big-name bona fides in director-choreographers Kenny Ortega and Travis Payne. Both worked with Michael Jackson in life, and Payne was involved in the two Jackson-themed Cirque du Soleil shows.

But today’s show is apparently just to drum up interest among potential buyers on the Strip, not a preview of a done deal.

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