Producer David King tapping Vegas market with step-dancing ‘Spirit’

Indeed, the well is about 30 shows deep. If “Spirit of the Dance” and “Dancing Queen” don’t catch fire in a cabaret venue now called the Broadway Theater, their British producer is flexible: “We’ll put in what sells and what doesn’t, we’ll take out.”

King’s Spirit Productions seemed to have shows in every resort market except Las Vegas, before the producer struck this deal to turn the former Rok club at New York-New York into a cabaret-sized theater. “Spirit” is up and step-dancing in the afternoon, with the Abba tribute schedule to open Tuesday.

They are but two of 15 titles King says he has running around the world right now, and that’s after a February tornado sidelined his four-show, all-day operation in Branson, Mo.

“We’re continually adding to the portfolio,” he says of his list of titles.

However, given that King is running this new venture in a casino owned by MGM Resorts International, some of those titles might have to be scratched off the backup list.

“Le Grand Cirque”? Probably won’t fly with Cirque du Soleil running “Zumanity” in the same building.

“Man in the Mirror”? You’d have to go to Reno to see the Michael Jackson tribute at the Eldorado. You won’t see it here, where Cirque and MGM are readying Mandalay Bay for the estate-sanctioned “The Immortal.”

But it’s conceivable that MGM could sign off on “The Four Seasons Tribute Special” just to tweak the “Jersey Boys” across the Strip. Or “Frank, Dean & Sammy,” just because, well you know.

By now you might be reminded of walking up to the Redbox and spotting a fighting-robot movie that isn’t “Transformers,” or a Snow White movie that isn’t the Snow White movie coming to theaters this summer.

Critics say King has built his empire “cashing in on the confusion,” as singer Anthony Kearns puts it in an email, clarifying that the singing trio billed in “Spirit of the Dance” as Dublin’s Irish Tenors is not his better-known Irish Tenors.

King says it’s more a case of meeting demand to its full potential. He acknowledges owing his success to “Riverdance,” which he saw in London soon after it opened in 1996.

“About six months in, I decided I’m going to do this,” King recalls. “Because they created the hype, make no bones about that. I never wanted to make a show that was a copy of theirs or a rip-off. … So I made my own production and made it more international.

“Within two years, I went from the unemployment line to multimillionaire status.”

The “Riverdance” producers weren’t impressed. “Very early on they tried to stop me and they couldn’t,” King says. By the time the single company of “Riverdance” was no longer moored in London, “I had 14 troupes in 14 countries at the same time.”

Irish hedge-row dancing peaked as a cultural phenomenon during the Clinton administration, but the door never closed for King. “Michael Flatley you never hear of anymore,” he says. “ ’Riverdance,’ I don’t know what they’re doing. (There is a U.S. company on tour now.) But we’re going. We keep going.”

It’s one thing for King to “bring musicals to the masses” in smaller markets. It’s quite another to join another 100 or so shows in Las Vegas.

“I’ve been offered showrooms and situations in Vegas for years,” he says. But he only bit once, when “Spirit” ran at the Golden Nugget from mid-2002 to late 2004. “It’s not the competition that frightens me, it’s the costs. … Just to get attention is expensive.”

But the chance to program a small venue – which can seat as many as 300 in straight rows of chairs – appealed to him. Some of his “Spirit” tours have 48 dancers onstage; this one has eight, plus the three Irish singers performing to recorded tracks. “This is a different wow. It’s a nice wow and a cozy wow.”

“I think it’s a nice little space,” he adds of the venue, where the stage has been expanded but otherwise still looks much like its Rok club incarnation. “To see this show so close up, and the energy and the passion that’s coming off the stage, I think it really works.”

King also hopes to follow a path that avoids the high-dollar competition, running “Spirit” at 4 p.m. when he’s only up against a few shows, most of them magic-themed.

“I’d rather be the king of the afternoons than the pauper of the evenings,” he says. Ideally though, he’d like to run four titles a day, from 2 p.m. to late evening.

“We’re all fighting for the same dollar,” he says of Las Vegas. “Do I need it? I’ll let you know in about a year. I’ll either be a million dollars up or a million dollars down. Today, I can’t tell you.”

He can, no doubt, rest assured that a King production will be playing somewhere next year.

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