Steve Wynn has made fulfilling peoples’ Las Vegas fantasies his life’s goal.  And is there any fantasy more symbolic of our city than the Las Vegas showgirl?  Feathered headpieces strewn with lead crystals, extravagant costumes bedecked with spangles and sequins, dynamic dancing, and legs for days!  Now, combine that with the best of Broadway – numbers that sprang from the minds of folks like Kander & Ebb, Marvin Hamlisch, and Stephen Sondheim – and you’ve got Steve Wynn’s ShowStoppers!

If I've gleaned one thing about Mr. Wynn, over these past decades – it's that he believes (and rightly so) that his customers are accustomed to the best; so, he offers them nothing less.  Look at the costumes in ShowStoppers.  The amazing Suzy Benzinger, whose wardrobe lit-up the silver screen in Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine (earning her the Costume Designers Guild of America’s 2013 CDG Award for “Excellence in Contemporary Film”) has assembled a gobsmackingly gorgeous array of attire that is both film-worthy for its fabulosity, yet seems to have been spun from spools of gossamer.  What’s your secret, Suzy B?

The set design was particularly well conceived and executed as the sets lend themselves to any number of incarnations for different songs.  I especially enjoyed the way the sets and costumes used in the numbers from Cabaret (“Wilkommen” and “Money”) transported me not so much to a third-rate Weimar-era theater, so much as a present day nightclub at Wynn Las Vegas!  Dontcha just adore the power of the theater?

Also – and perhaps I should’ve started with this – you simply cannot beat a live, full orchestra (in a tiered Art Deco bandstand, covered in champagne velvet, no less).  The sheer musicality of these musicians is worth the price of admission, alone.

And the dancing!  I love a company whose synchronous movements are laser sharp.  I remember when, as a young gay, I first saw A Chorus Line; and when they performed “One” my jaw dropped.  Or that the first character I saw on Broadway who I really wanted to be, was Lola, in Damn Yankees (Hello??  Whatever she wanted, she got!).  I’d daresay that the strongest thing about this show is the company of talented singers and dancers who fill-up every inch of that proscenium stage, kicking and sliding and vamping.  My favorite would have to be young Joe Chantry.  The recent Chapman University grad manages to exude grace while maintaining a youthful masculinity (no easy feat on the boards).

As for the leads, one stood above the rest, as far as I was concerned; and that was Lindsay Roginski.  She absolutely killed it, in the tongue-in-cheek “Cell Block Tango” from Chicago.  The lady’s got pipes, face, and body-ody-ody; and when that tall drink of water dropped effortlessly into a full-split – well, the crowd went wild.

Now, nobody is going to agree with every number in the show, and that’s fine.  These are Steve Wynn’s ShowStoppers (because, if it were Michael Shulman’s ShowStoppers, you’d see numbers like “Forty-Second Street” from 42nd Street; “Luck Be a Lady” from Guys & Dolls; “Don’t Rain on My Parade” from Funny Girl; or “Promises, Promises” from Promises, Promises), and that’s what’s so wonderful about a review, such as this (with sets and costumes such as these): So long as the company is able to add new numbers to its repertoire, it has the ability to change and morph and evolve.  And it’s that “go-back-ability” that could put ShowStoppers in a league with The Beatles LOVE by Cirque du Soleil and Elton John: The Million Dollar Piano – shows that (even if you’ve seen them a dozen times) when you’ve got friends in town, you can attend over and over, without the urge to jam a fork in your eye.

And who knows?  Maybe next season, I’ll be sitting in my seat, at the Encore Theater, singing along, as some diva points from the stage, belting-out that classic refrain from Dreamgirls,  “…and you, and you, and you; you’re gonna love me!”

Steve Wynn’s ShowStoppers
Encore Theater|Wynn Las Vegas
Click HERE for info

Get into it!