Glass-eaters and rappers unite: The Secret Circus has come to town

Zamora the Torture King’s starting with something light.

He informs us of such while swinging an illuminated bulb, speaking literally.

Out comes a small, shiny metal hammer to crush the thing to bits.

“You can’t be too careful when you’re eating broken glass,” he explains — as if such an explanation were necessary, considering the act in question.

He steps close to the mic so you can hear him chew, the sound akin to the crunch of gravel beneath tires when barreling down an unpaved road.

“I can’t watch this,” a woman in the crowd groans.

“You’re a legend!” a dude counters.

Zamora sticks out his tongue, a normally flat surface now studded with shiny, sharp edges, then gulps down a cup of water.

“I will see that glass again,” he notes. “Tomorrow. In complete privacy.”

The room erupts in approval.

Stacey Stardust’s Secret Circus is heating up.

It’s a Thursday evening at downtown club Artifice, and the night is alive with magic, music, many punchlines, a little titillation and some seriously abused digestive tracts.

This is Vegas’ first — and only — circus open mic: a novel, irreverent, unabashedly bawdy concept that offers sideshow performers — along with a variety of other acts — a platform to showcase their talents in a field where such platforms are rare. (Really, where do you go to hone your chops as a sword-swallower?)

Here, rappers take the stage alongside burlesque dancers, magicians perform amid jugglers, debauched clowns do their thing next to rubber-limbed contortionists.

The ringleader of it all, fire-breathing magician and mentalist Stacey Stardust, encapsulates the night in the form of a question, bellowed at the beginning of the show.

“You guys ready to see some wild sh--?”

An idea born from an injury

You could say this all began with a broken leg.

Shortly before the pandemic, Stacey Stardust (aka Stacey Weiland) suffered the aforementioned injury while roller-skating.

A hula hoop performer whose physical dexterity was an inherent part of her art, she suddenly found herself sidelined.

And so as one does when looking to occupy all that newfound downtime during the healing process, Weiland turned to magic.

She invited a magician friend over to teach her some card tricks.

She got hooked.

She also saw a potential new future for herself as a performer — one a little easier on the joints.

“My body isn’t going to last forever,” she says. “And with magic, mind reading, you see these older men do mentalism because it’s something that just uses your mind — not your body. I thought that was really cool and powerful.”

Now, she just needed an audience.

“Magic is one of those art forms where you can only get good performing for live people,” she explains. “You can try to use a random card generator to choose a card and see if you can find it or whatever, but nothing else is going to prepare you for a real-time experience.”

Thing is, finding that audience as a neophyte magician can be as tricky as any of the magic you’re trying to master.

Pulling a rabbit out of a hat is one thing. Hard to do the same with a crowd.

There are no open-mic nights for magicians — or other circus-style acts — like there are for comedians and poets and singers and such.

At least there wasn’t eight months ago.

And so Stacey Stardust created one.

‘I love weird, quirky, freaky stuff’

We’re a little over an hour into the show, and our hostess is swallowing a balloon the length of her arm.

Down it goes and up come the cheers as Weiland regales the crowd with some esophageal feats.

The Secret Circus is no longer much of a secret: The place is packed, and most of the shows have sold out since debuting last August.

Tonight’s lineup ranges from rappers Charles King and Snap Murphy, who make for a fierce pairing, to wisecracking magician Bizarro, who sports a fish-shaped tie that he doffs to reveal the bones of said creature, to awesomely named burlesque dancer I.L.Y. Royale with Cheese.

Stardust curates the lineup, favoring an eclectic, anything-goes vibe.

“I love weird, quirky, freaky stuff,” she says. “I just love variety. I love it going from, like, an opera singer to a sideshow artist.”

If Weiland is feeling the love now, she earned it the hard way, developing her magic skills by performing amid the boozy chaos of the Fremont Street Experience.

“You have the casinos blasting music, live bands playing, a million other street performers,” Weiland says. “And most of the people on Fremont Street are wasted, so it’s trying to get attention from these drunk people who are overstimulated by all the lights and sounds and get them to stop.

“When you’re performing on the streets, people aren’t sitting there just watching your show,” she continues. “If you’re bad, they’re gonna walk away immediately. If you’re not catching their attention, you’re gonna know.”

It was brutal at times.

“I almost gave up on magic from doing it on Fremont Street, because it was so intense and so hard,” Weiland acknowledges. “But I finally wrapped my head around it. And I’m like, ‘I should be doing this full time. I’m ready for a stage.’ ”

She’d eventually get one at Artifice, which offered Weiland her own show after hiring her to do some close-up magic at one of its events last year and loving her performance.

“I said, ‘I don’t have my own show. But I have this idea for a show,’ ” she recalls. “I know so many people in the community who would love something like this. I kind of wanted to bring more people together who maybe wouldn’t necessarily get to hang out together.

“I don’t just want to showcase circus artists who have been performing for years — I do want to have them — but I want to have that raw, authentic, local, new artist energy as well,” she continues. “I want it to be more inclusive.”

‘Vegas needs places like this’

For an artist like Murphy, this can mean performing in front of a different type of crowd than he’s used to at straight-up hip-hop gigs.

“I love being a rapper and being a part of Stacey’s Secret Circus, because it helps me reach a new audience,” he says, having performed on the show numerous times. “I feel like the event brings all sorts of energy and fun to the table. Some people just go to magic shows, some just hip-hop shows, some to see burlesque, but by combining all of them into one, Stacey gives a platform to attract an audience of all ages and walks of life.”

It’s also an outlet for established performers like Bizarro to develop fresh material in a more informal setting than a traditional headlining show.

“All performers need what we call ‘good places to be bad,’ ” he explains. “We need somewhere to try out new material or dust off and practice old routines where it won’t really affect our career. If that place is also a fun atmosphere that fosters creativity, it’s even better.

“Vegas is an odd animal,” he continues. “The landscape is littered with shows of all kinds, but nowhere to really just ‘try’ stuff. Sure, there are little open-mic nights at bars and whatnot, but those venues can’t give you proper feedback. This is where Secret Circus comes into play. It’s an open mic in the sense of the acts can do whatever strikes their fancy, but it’s curated ahead of time and presented as more of a show. Vegas needs places like this. Performers need it. Audiences need it. It’s an important part of the process to making your art better.”

The Secret Circus, which takes place the fourth Thursday of each month, returns April 27.

Show up, and maybe — just maybe — you’ll be encouraged to share your inner glass-eater, or whatever hidden talent you might possess, with the rest of the world one day.

“I want people to see the show who maybe hadn’t thought about performing, who has an art form, and be like, ‘I want to get good enough to be able to do something on this stage, because there is this opportunity,’ ” Weiland says.

“I want people to feel inspired,” she continues. “Everybody has an inner artist in them.”

Contact Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476. Follow @jbracelin76 on Instagram.