Wishing for new ideas in new year

You had your looking back, and a drink or five, while saying good riddance to a nasty year.

Now it’s time to look ahead with clear eyes. Pop some aspirin if need be. Hangovers should be no problem for the entertainment venders of Las Vegas, who had little to celebrate.

This entertainment wish list for 2010 is aimed mostly at them, but you consumers out there can back me up with your ticket dollars.

1. Keep up the tough love with magicians.

There are six good magic shows on the Strip and six more hanging on or recently closed. It’s hard to watch cute animals get eaten on the nature shows, but this Vegas Darwinism needs to continue until the message seeps through their spangly tuxedos: Unless magicians can show us something we haven’t seen before, we’ve seen enough.

2. We need a CarMax for tickets.

Does it really cost $55 to see “Legends in Concert”? Only if you don’t know the game. Even if you do, it means keeping your plans flexible, standing in line at a “half-price” ticket booth on the day of the show, and paying a service charge on each ticket, all to get the $30 you should be paying in the first place.

For most producers, full-priced sales are just the icing on the cake, one of many tributaries flowing into the river that gets to their real average price. It’s time for producers to get together and figure out how to get the advertised price closer to the hidden average.

3. If you can’t be “Transformers 2,” be “Paranormal Activity.”

Vegas is synonymous with spectacle, but we start this year with no big production shows on the horizon (not counting “Viva Elvis,” already in previews). If we’re not going to see another “Ka” in 2010, what will we see instead? More stand-up comedy and topless cabaret?

I would root for the return of quality small-cast titles such as The Second City or (the off-Broadway) “Stomp,” or Chazz Palminteri’s one-man “A Bronx Tale.”

Be inspired by the cojones of Terrence Williams and Emily Gillette at the Stage Door Theatre at Town Square, testing everything from “Schoolhouse Rock” to “An X-mas Carol.” And that takes us to …

4. Keep looking for something new.

It’s out there, somewhere. Solid business for “A Bronx Tale” suggests it just might work. You will argue this is not a year for experimentation. I will make you read No. 1 again, or remind you of the precarious “Peepshow.”

Producers thought the striptease revue was more novel and innovative than audiences did. It’s now on “hiatus” until March 1.

But that hiatus makes room for Jason Alexander doing his “Donny Clay” parody of motivational speakers. If you’re tired of the usual stuff, buy a ticket. Maybe even pay full price.

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