The Broadway of the Desert
Las Vegas has everything: Fabulous hotels, casinos, world class restaurants, and shows by some of the biggest stars in music. Something that hasn’t worked in Sin City: Broadway-style shows. Here are some that came to Vegas and died in Vegas.
Hairspray
Hairspray has been successful in almost all of its incarnations. Cult filmmaker John Waters’ semi-biographical story of the desegregation of a 1960s Baltimore TV teen dance show was a hit movie in 1988, and a stage musical version was a Broadway smash when it opened in 2002, ultimately running for six years and winning eight Tony Awards, including Best Musical. The musical was then made into another movie, and it was adapted for a live NBC version in 2016. In other words, Hairspray had a lot of fans, but they didn’t come see it in Las Vegas. In 2006, a planned four-year run of Hairspray at the Luxor hotel and casino closed after a little more than three months. It almost never sold out its modest 1,500-seat theater, despite the star presence of Harvey Fierstein, reprising his role from Broadway. (Other Broadway hits that opened—and quickly closed—in Las Vegas around the same time: Spamalot, The Producers, and Avenue Q.)
Pawn Shop Live
Pawn Shop Live was a unique idea: It was a scripted parody of a popular reality show…and it was a musical. It was inspired by and poked fun at Pawn Stars, the History Channel show about a family-run Las Vegas pawn shop. (Pawn Stars’ Rick Harrison co-wrote the show.) Opening in 2014, Pawn Shop Live got decent reviews for its songs and quirky staging (Pawn Stars’ “Old Man” was represented on stage by an actor wearing an enormous, wrinkled costume head), but it couldn’t pull in enough fans in its initial home at the Golden Nugget for more than a few months. It moved to the Riviera before closing down completely about a month later.
Duck Commander Musical
Believe it or not, Pawn Shop Live isn’t the only reality TV-based musical to hit Las Vegas. In 2015, Duck Commander Musical, based on the hit A&E show Duck Dynasty. The musical attempted to strike on the series’ mixture of spirituality, family drama, and comedy, but couldn’t pull in huge audiences the way the TV show did. After opening at the Rio in early April 2015, it closed in mid-May 2015.
Viva Veracruz
Not every Las Vegas bust is based on a TV show or an extension of a popular Broadway musical. For example, a huge production that opened in 2014 at the Planet Hollywood Hotel and Casino called Viva Veracruz. The Mexican state of Veracruz commissioned and helped fun the production, which played in Las Vegas but was designed to somehow increase tourism to Mexico. It didn’t work—the show, which combined music, dance, and folklore—had its opening delayed, and played for a limited run of just a few shows, with plans to re-open in 2015. (That didn’t happen.)
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