If there's one thing most entertainers are good at, it's how to juggle performances. In New York City, they may have a sideline in real estate or hospitality. In Las Vegas, their day job is also entertainment.
“That's the great thing about Vegas: You'll find people who will do anything,” says Katie Marie Jones, a busy local actress who also works as a magician's assistant on the Vegas Strip and an on-ice host at home games. of the Golden Knights hockey team. “If you have multiple wishes and talents, or if you are open to learning new things, it is easy to build a career here, because there is so much.”
This city has been world famous as an entertainment destination for decades and continues to develop. Today, the Strip hosts performances by Cirque du Soleil, comedians, razzmatazz magicians and pop performances. Visitors can also attend Spiegelworld's immersive “Disco Show” and an interactive installation by arttainment group Meow Wolf at Area15, which is dedicated to immersive projects. Major touring musicals make stops at the Smith Center, and three major league professional sports teams have moved there relatively recently.
What's much harder to find is smaller-scale theater, a collection of medium-sized institutions that together would form the equivalent of Off Broadway.
There is indeed a homegrown professional scene in Las Vegas, but visitors usually don't know it because the Strip sucks up all the attention. It may be messy, with its rock 'n' roll energy, but the theater makers here are extremely resourceful and do not fit into boxes. Over a long weekend late last fall, a few things became clear: there is a palpable hunger to make theater against all odds, the locals who can keep it viable are ready for it, and the artists are enjoying the freedom of bridging of aesthetic and artistic worlds.
To find those shows, for example, you can go a little more than a mile west of Las Vegas Boulevard, the street off the Strip, to the series of office and rehearsal spaces where I saw a performance of A Public Fit's stellar production of “The Minutes ', The pitch-black comedy by Tracy Letts. Or you can head about a mile north of the Strip to the Majestic Repertory Theater, where Jones is currently playing scheming hustler Sally Bowles in “Cabaret” — “she would kill in Vegas,” Jones said appreciatively.
And that's two-thirds of the scene. Another outfit, Vegas Theater Company, is a seven-minute walk from Majestic in the 18b Las Vegas Arts District (so named because it originally spanned 18 blocks) and feels like a compact version of Austin, Texas, before the tech boom.
Any way you look at it, three isn't much company for a metropolitan area of about three million people.
“Growing up here and seeing the city grow and evolve, I kind of assumed the culture would evolve in a way similar to other big cities I knew – Los Angeles, Chicago and New York,” says Joseph D. Kucan, 59, the producing director at A Public Fit. “And that just didn't happen.”
Maggie Plaster, Nevada Ballet Theater board member and director of parks, recreation and cultural affairs for the city of Las Vegas, said in a telephone interview that she “didn't really know we had local theater until I became part of the cultural community.” business team three years ago.” (The Arts District is under the jurisdiction of the city. The Strip is in an unincorporated part of Clark County, which has jurisdiction over it.)
When asked why local theater is struggling to get off the ground, Plaster cited rising rents, the marketing noise of big shows that obscures the efforts of smaller companies, and the lack of deep-pocketed donors.
“We've been doing this for 12 years and it's been incredibly difficult,” said Ann-Marie Pereth, 54, artistic director of A Public Fit. “Philanthropy is not the same in this city as it is in other cities.”
She and Kucan have become masters at developing partnerships with other companies (they did a production of Brian Friel's “Dancing at Lughnasa” at Vegas Theater Company last year) and local governments (such as semi-staged readings at the Clark County Library). .
Another missing element is an institution that could act as a magnet. The city is missing a local member of the national League of Resident Theaters — which includes nonprofits such as Actors Theater of Louisville, the Alley Theater in Houston, the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles and Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago. A Las Vegas institution in that network could forge closer relationships with peers, create ties for potential commissions and co-productions, and generally have a better chance at national exposure.
But two ambitious projects could dramatically change things in the near future: Vegas Theater Company executive artistic director Daz Weller, 46, is working on a new performing arts complex in the Arts District, where his own company, Vegas City Opera, would are housed. and possibly other groups. Then there's the Huntridge Theater, an imposing building that started life as a movie palace in 1944, closed in 2004, and will reopen in the second quarter of 2026 after an extensive renovation. It could fill the middle ground between the Smith Center and the Strip on the one hand and the Off Off Strip businesses on the other.
The project is led by Nevada developer J Dapper of Dapper Companies, who purchased the Huntridge in 2021, and Darren Lee Cole, the producing artistic director of New York City's SoHo Playhouse, which will operate the multiple stages. The idea, Cole explained in a telephone interview, is that the complex will play a role similar to that of Off Broadway in New York, housing both imported and Las Vegas-produced productions, major playwrights and newcomers, together with pop and rock concerts. .
On the need for such a place, he said: “People are coming from New York, from Chicago, from St. Louis, from Los Angeles in particular, San Francisco, and all these new residents have a cultural base that is more inclusive than seeing the shows on the Strip and maybe going to a Broadway show at the Smith Center.
Cole is in discussions with a range of potential partners, including the three major professional Vegas companies. Troy Heard, artistic director of Majestic, is especially optimistic. “Not only because of its historical significance in our city, but it is a rebirth for our area – a new anchor facility.”
Until the deck is somehow reshuffled, the hardy locals will continue to create theater with ingenuity and ingenuity. “You don't have culture vultures who overlook everything you do,” the 49-year-old Heard said approvingly. “There's a sense of the Wild West here, a sense of experimentation.”
He is behind his own success story: “Scream'd: An Unauthorized Musical Parody.”
When the post-pandemic doldrums befell Majestic, Heard threw what he described as a Hail Mary pass to save the company, which he founded in 2016. He wrote a parody of the 1996 horror comedy 'Scream', featuring a jukebox full of nineties hits and staged it with a boisterous, crazy spirit in a cabaret setting. (The versatile Jones took on the roles of Drew Barrymore and Rose McGowan.)
It opened in September 2023 and when a clip went viral on TikTok, the house was packed with locals and traveling fans alike. The night I caught 'Scream'd' I met a couple of sisters in their twenties who had just completed eight cars. hours from Monterey, California, to see it. The Majestic plans to hold the show in residence this year, with a Los Angeles production planned for May at the Whitley.
A gamble that paid off sounds like a Vegas happy ending, a comparison Heard is probably fine with: This Georgia transplant admires the city and its quirky culture. “The Strip is a cruise ship in the middle of the desert, and there is an interesting community of creatives, artists and visionaries who come to work on the Strip but have a life outside of it,” he said. Of course, Heard also takes on freelance assignments: he leads the upcoming “John Wick Experience” at Area15.
Weller is just as ecumenical. Out of necessity, but also, you feel, out of inclination.
After working as an actor in his native Australia, Weller moved to Las Vegas in 2010 to reunite with his friend (now husband), Toby Allen, whose vocal group, Human Nature, appeared on the Strip. Once in town, Weller continued to act but also built his resume as a director, including a stint as associate director on Spiegelworld's 'Vegas Nocturne' in 2013.
Since 2018, Weller has been artistic director of Vegas Theater Company (né Cockroach Theatre). Last year's productions included a revival of Suzan-Lori Parks' “Topdog/Underdog,” as well as the premieres of the provocative “CLUElesque” (now “ClueX”) and the coming-of-age musical “The House on Watch Hill ”, which will return this year.
It was created by Richard Oberacker and Robert Taylor (whose 'Bandstand' hit Broadway in 2017), and they are usually busy on the Strip too – Oberacker has been the conductor of Cirque du Soleil's flagship show, 'Kà ,” while Taylor played violin in Adele's band during her residency. Both men like to switch back and forth between large and small productions.
Versatility is key
Oberacker pointed out that the creative possibilities are also enhanced by a formidable calendar of trade shows, product launches and corporate events. “If you're an improv artist, if you're a clown, you can find your way to work in really cool, strange ways because of the nature of the industry here in events,” he said. After the “Scream'd” performance I attended, Anisa, the mono drummer of the live band, said she could make “10 times more per night” playing a corporate gig or trade show.
The adaptability extends to the way theater companies organize themselves. After losing its large downtown space, A Public Fit, which focuses largely on contemporary plays (Sam Shepard's “True West” will be presented this spring), became semi-touring. At Vegas Theater Company, Weller – who is paid on a project basis – is particularly adept at juggling new and old material, rentals and in-house projects, regular performances and weekly events.
The latter includes “The Marquis de Sade Presents: Abandon,” Robert Bullwinkel, Abel Horwitz and Jana Wimer's wordless after-hours show, proudly flying the adult flag that is very much part of the more sulphurous Vegas tradition. The inventive production features deft performers with credits from Blue Man Group and Cirque du Soleil, and benefits from stunning audio work by Joseph Bishara, composer of “Conjuring” and “Insidious,” and sound designer Katie Halliday, Emmy Award winner for “Stranger Things.”
While constant scrounging is difficult, as Pereth said, the Vegas theater scene also has access to a wild pool of talent and exhibits an undeniable DIY energy, even in a more traditional production like A Public Fit, which she co-directed with Kucan. .
Back at “Scream'd” at Majestic, my attention drifted to a young audience member, decked out in steampunk-goth finery, who seemed to be enjoying every second of the show intensely. It was a repeat visit for Julia Osier, 17, a Las Vegan who wants to study lighting design and had come with her best friend, who was herself interested in stage management. “We go everywhere, but we usually like story theater, everything to Shakespeare,” Osier said. “We'll see everything.”
Ideally, the Las Vegas theater scene can give them not only the chance to see something, but also the chance to create something.
