Show & Tell: Tara Palsha of ‘Vegas! The Show’

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Q: You studied musical theater in college?

A: I majored in dance, believe it or not (at Kent State).

Q: Were your parents behind your decision?

A: I always performed, but my dad (a corporate comptroller) was always, “Well, maybe you should go into business.”

Q: And your mom?

A: My mom’s an opera singer. (Laughs) One extreme to the other. My mom, being in the opera, she put me onstage when I was 4, I think.

Q: It must be nice now to have someone to talk to who understands the business.

A: I’m so lucky. She gets all the crazy calls nobody else would ever understand. Like, today, some lady came up to me and said, “You’re so much more beautiful up close than far away.” (Laughs) I know she’s trying to give me a compliment, but only Mom would understand that.

Q: Before coming to Las Vegas, you spent some time in a Rat Pack look-alike show?

A: It was a company out of Atlantic City. … I was a Copa dancer there, with the G-string.

Q: That must have been a weird adjustment after all of the ballet and singing and musical theater you’d been doing up to that point.

A: It was really weird. I was like, a bunhead – I was a ballet girl – and the next thing you know I have something climbing up my bum and rhinestones coming out of my breasts. I was like, “Ohhh … ”

Q: A good “Ohhh … ” or a bad “Ohhh … ”?

A: Good. It was like the little Pittsburgh kid ran away from home to become a topless showgirl.

Q: What happened to that show?

A: It closed early, so I ran off to Vegas. There was an audition for “Jubilee!” and I wasn’t ready to go back (to Pittsburgh). It was February and it’s freezing cold. And I got “Jubilee!” on the first audition. I was the shortest girl in the shortest line at the time, so I was just, like, tall enough.

Q: You also did “Peepshow” and “Fantasy” before becoming lead dancer in “Vegas! The Show.”

A: It’s interesting when you, like, reach your ultimate goal. Then you’ve got to start reinventing yourself. I’m not singing in this production, but I am singing locally in town quite a bit on the variety show circuit. I really enjoy singing the old standards.

Q: Who turned you on to that genre of music?

A: My grandparents, I guess. I mean, I didn’t even know that was inside me, that music. But it made a huge impact, and for a classically trained singer, it’s actually a good transition to, like, jazz and standards.