David Saxe on seven years of ‘Vegas! The Show’: ‘We’re still going strong’
For nearly seven years, producer David Saxe has been defying disbelievers and naysayers. More incredibly in a year that saw 20 shows close in Las Vegas, David has been producing “Vegas! The Show” to sold-out audiences not once a night but twice nightly seven days a week.
“We’re still going strong,” David told me. David also is getting ready to revamp the hit production, then starts planning a new, larger-scale interactive show to take on the big Strip spectacles headfirst.
When you sat down to put this production together, to write it, to produce it the first time, what was in the back of your mind? What were you seeking to achieve?
I overheard tourists in conversation at a restaurant talking about wanting to see a real Las Vegas show. One of them said, “You mean ‘O’ ”? The three debated what a real Las Vegas show is and came to the conclusion that there is none. I flipped out and said, “I’m done. I have got to show them what the hell Las Vegas is all about: the singers, the dancers, the specialty acts.”
I didn’t care if it made money. I just had to go do it because I grew up here, born and raised. I was just so amazed to see the shift in people who didn’t know that entertainers like The Rat Pack and Sammy Davis Jr. gave their heart and soul and sweat every night. Back in the days, no two shows were the same, and tourists don’t know that anymore. I’m like, “I just have to do it.”
You decided to do it, and in a sense you were taking on the big boys like Cirque du Soleil and solo-star production shows?
Part of it was that, but there was a real place for them. It made me realize that there were no more showgirl shows. Some were in trouble, and some had closed or were about to. I was like, “What is going on here?” This is absurd. There’s a change going on that I didn’t like. I wanted to bring back Classic Vegas, and now I’m the only real showgirl show in Las Vegas.
It’s crazy. We’re doing 14 shows a week — twice nightly seven nights a week. Nobody else can say that. I have multiple cast members we rotate so we can do seven nights a week. That’s old school.
I remember thinking back to the first auditions, there are a lot of dancers out there who want to work. They can get by on music videos or doing go-go in a bar, but they don’t work seven nights a week. I said, “We’re going old school.”
Not just with the show, but with their mentality and attitude. There used to be shows seven days a week, and my dad was in the relief band who would play on the seventh night. There were shows doing two productions a night. I’m like, “I’m bringing every aspect of old school back.”
Last year, some 20 shows closed, and you’re still going strong with a formula that is from 40 years ago? Is it working for you because it’s value for money respecting the audience? What do you think is the secret for its success?
You probably haven’t seen “Kung Fu Panda,” the first one where Jack Black plays the panda. He’s on a quest for the secret of Kung Fu hanging in the secret temple. For the entire film, he’s trying to find out what the secret is.
They finally get it, open it up, and there’s nothing on the paper. The secret is that there is no secret — and it’s the same for me. It’s just hard work, a good show, a good price, knowing what the audience wants, not outsmarting yourself. It’s basic stuff executed tenaciously. A lot of people just outsmart themselves.
Reva Rice from “Starlight Express” and Josh Strickland from “Peepshow” are the two big names in the show I saw. What does the cast feel about the show in terms of they’re doing well in a time when a lot of others are shutting down?
With all the shows closing, the cast has been very appreciative. They understand how lucky they are for this craft. They love what they do. They could make a whole lot more money being a stripper in a strip club or working at a topless pool, but these are trained, amazing dancers and singers.
If they sold out, they could make more money, but they love their craft so much and work really hard on it. They could make the easy buck if they sold out for the other stuff. Here they love what they do and do it twice a night like the hardest-trained dancers.
They have a pride, an independence. We aren’t fighting against the big boys. We don’t have the money to advertise like they do. For us it’s just word of mouth. It’s their pride and passion for the performance. The secret isn’t on a piece of paper.
It’s just something like knowing you could put our show of talent and technicality next to anything out there and win. We really have amazing, talented people, and every night at the cast meet-and-greet, the audience tells us that it was the best show of their visit. That’s a good feeling.
Is it the best-kept secret on the Strip?
I don’t want it to be a secret, but it is. Nobody really knows about it. We’re not a national brand. It’s a whole word-of-mouth kind of thing. If our ticket brokers had people coming back to say it was a terrible show, they’d never sell us again. So it’s got to be great, and because it is, they keep selling it.
Every show in town has a girl doing hoops, but you chose to use a man. Liberace once drove a car onstage, but you have a gorgeous redhead on a Vespa. You present The Quiddlers, the wackiest act in show business. What does that say about what you are producing?
When I was growing up, I used to have to sit for the rehearsals. I’d sit in the showrooms while my dad played his music, while my mom was in the shows, too. I’d sit backstage, and my favorite things were the specialty acts. I would run out to watch them.
The comedians, goofy stuff, I love specialty acts popping out, so I just wanted to make sure that we still had specialty acts in this show. We have a big stage, and even though the showroom is only 425 seats, it still feels like a big room. You have to have things that really grab attention.
A single person onstage better be crazy or funny or do something that holds the audience’s attention. It has to read well, it has to read funny. It is the palate for the bigger production numbers that follow. It becomes a good mix.
You don’t have a real host in the show. That’s obviously a deliberate decision to keep the entertainment coming at the audience nonstop?
Yes. I wanted a little more story originally, the story of Ernie who was the ghost of entertainment past and the protector of Las Vegas entertainment legends. He starts the show as sort of the host. I had him coming back throughout the show as he took the audience on a journey and shows them what Las Vegas was like back in the good old days.
I worried, though, that it would slow down the show to keep going back to the story. It wasn’t designed to not have a specific host. I was just worried that it would get in the way of the right amount of energy and excitement I wanted and slow down that pace.
So you keep the flow going fast and furious, but also in the back of your mind, there had to be a sense that audiences got true value for their money?
Absolutely. I have probably four hours of material to put in the show. I wanted Evel Knievel actually jumping over the whole audience while they’re onstage like it’s the Caesars Fountains. I have so many crazy things I’ve tried to put in, so now that’ll be in the next version.
How often do you change the show?
It doesn’t necessarily warrant big changes, but we’re constantly changing, tweaking, cutting and adding. There’s about to be another big change coming up. I’m taking a few numbers out, adding some numbers that couldn’t fit in at the beginning. Now that it’s played for a while, I can tell what works and what doesn’t work. So a lot of big changes coming.
We’re in the process now, I’d say within two months, we’ll have the majority of the changes in. A few new numbers at least. I’m trying to add in a tribute to Lola Falana because she was huge in Las Vegas. It’s a girl power salute with Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Are Made for Walking.” With tons of beautiful girls, we’ll get in even more dancing and girl power.
We already have enough girls for it. Because we go seven nights a week, we have 18 girls in the show. We’re designing it now; numbers with elevator lifts and conveyer belts and all kinds of cool stuff. I’m making some changes to the Reva and Josh routines. All the singers are amazing, and I’m not taking anything away from them.
It’s not about them specifically because we are seven days a week. The show stands on its own no matter who is in it. It’s such a good cast of singers. I tell them all when they start in the show, it’s not going to be “starring John Smith.”
The show is “Vegas! The Show.” That’s the star, so the cast is all ensemble, if you will. It’s neat, though, to have somebody like Josh who starred on Broadway at “Tarzan.” He’s basically in the company, yet he stands out. He’s amazing, but the show’s about the show and Old Vegas.
You also run V Theater at Miracle Mile with several shows a day. Is everything still running smoothly there, too?
All is good. Every day I just wonder, “What’s going to come next?” “How have I gone so long and been so successful selling out almost every show?” It’s been crazy. All these other shows closing, and I, too, am sitting there wondering, “What are we doing right?” I can’t even figure it out — it’s just right price and good product.
More than the right price and product, I think there also is a comfort factor that people don’t have to walk a long distance through a casino to an overwhelming theater.
It’s funny. Everybody told me that when I bought this theater that I was crazy and nothing would ever work without hotel support. It wouldn’t work because we were in a mall. It’s always negative stuff you hear, but people just want things simpler these days.
They aren’t the right words, but does it frustrate and irritate you that people think of you in a mall rather than a fancy casino? Do you hanker to take over a huge showroom on the Strip and do it your way?
I don’t have an urge to just necessarily take over a big room to do it my way, but I do want to create something. I do want to break the mold and do something that’s just so damn good. I don’t think it necessarily takes too much money, just something that’s so damn good with a different atmosphere, or an interactive way as a new type of theater.
In New York with “Sleep No More,” you have to follow the actors and chase them through scenes going on all over the place. (Editor’s Note: Audiences wear “Eyes Wide Shut”-esque masks and wander silently through five floors of dimly lit hallways.) I don’t want to do anything that complex, but I want to build a different type of interactive Las Vegas experience.
Are you saving your pennies and profits for that purpose?
Yes. I have plans for something big like that at some point. I probably should just put the money away and save it and not take on any more adventures, but I can’t. I have a sickness. I have to create and produce. I think of it, I put it on a napkin, it drives me crazy, I keep developing it, I write it, and I’m like, “Dammit, this needs to be done.” Then I do it.
“Vegas! The Show” is at Saxe Theater at Miracle Mile Shops at Planet Hollywood at 7 and 9 p.m. daily. David’s other shows are Nathan Burton, Recycled Percussion and “The Beatles Show Orchestra” also at Saxe Theater and “V: The Ultimate Variety Show,” “Zombie Burlesque,” “The Mentalist,” “Popovich Comedy Pet Theater,” “Hitzville Motown Revue,” “All Shook Up,” “Marc Savard Hypnosis” and Aussie Heat at V Theater at Planet Hollywood.
