Vereen returns to his Vegas roots

All roads lead - back - to Vegas.

At least for Ben Vereen, who's been steppin' out on stage and screen for more than four decades - and brings his aptly titled one-man showcase "Steppin' Out" to The Smith Center Saturday night.

It's a new Vegas venue for Vereen, 66, whose past Strip gigs have ranged from showroom headliner to "Chicago's" silver-tongued shyster Billy Flynn.

But long before Vereen conquered Broadway - first in 1968 in "Hair," then as Judas Iscariot in 1971's "Jesus Christ Superstar," then in 1972 as "Pippin's" Tony-winning Leading Player - there was Vegas.

Or, more precisely, a 1966 production of "Sweet Charity" at Caesars Palace, which starred Juliet Prowse - and featured a chorus member named Ben Vereen.

That production provided Vereen's first introduction to director/choreographer Bob Fosse - the same Bob Fosse who cast Vereen in "Pippin" and in 1979's "All That Jazz," Fosse's semiautobiographical, Oscar-winning movie musical.

"We go back, Vegas and I," Vereen chuckles as he contemplates his showbiz roots. (Not to be confused, of course, with the landmark 1977 miniseries "Roots," in which he played enterprising ex-slave "Chicken George" Moore.)

And Vereen's looking forward to the prospect of playing Las Vegas' newest venue, The Smith Center.

"I'm proud of Vegas for doing this," Vereen says. "It's so brave of your city to come forward and build" the performing arts center, which in his view is way overdue.

It's also a sign of changing times in the Entertainment Capital of the World, where Vereen was a fixture throughout the '80s in such venues as the Sahara's Congo Room, Caesars' Circus Maximus and the Celebrity Room at the former MGM Grand, which is now Bally's. (Review-Journal files even catch him in action leading an exercise workout at a local disco and making a "career day" visit to Vegas Verdes Elementary School.)

"I'm old school," Vereen admits, recalling Vegas' bygone days of "24/7 entertainment," where "you could go to the show all the time."

When Vereen first hit the Strip, "Fats Domino was in the lounge" and such Rat Pack royalty as Sammy Davis Jr. and Frank Sinatra (both of whom he salutes in "Steppin' Out") ruled the showrooms. "Tony Bennett, (Bill) Cosby, (Richard) Pryor ... those cats were walking around and hanging out," he remembers. "Milton Berle was my opening act!"

Speaking of comedians, stand-up stars from Don Rickles to David Brenner would "try to out-joke each other," Vereen says, citing the camaraderie of the past.

"Back in the day, there was a different energy," he acknowledges.

These days, "I'm hoping there'll be a market" for an entertainer like him, who "can just come out and give it your heart. What I grew up on was cats like that."

What Vereen grew up on inspires "Steppin' Out," which he describes as "a precursor to a bigger show," to be titled "Last of the Showmen."

And that title more than suits Vereen, according to David Loeb, director of jazz studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, who's been Vereen's pianist and conductor for 35 years. ("When I met him, he was watching himself in 'Roots' on a black-and-white TV in his dressing room," notes Loeb, who declined Vereen's job offer long enough to complete his master's degree at the Eastman School of Music.)

In more than three decades together, Vereen and Loeb have become "kind of like family," Loeb says - a connection that serves both in performance.

"It's like I'm in his head," Loeb explains. "I know when he's going to breathe. It's bizarre - it's just a symbiotic kind of relationship."

But that close connection makes it easier for Vereen to react to his audience - and tailor his performance to their reactions.

'Loves to perform'

"If you feel the audience going a certain way, if the mood doesn't work, you can change moods," Vereen notes.

As for Vereen's own mood on stage, "he loves to perform and he loves to bring people out of their own reality," Loeb observes. "He's so spontaneous and in the moment, it's almost as if he's on stage - and in (the audience's) bodies at the same time."

That in-the-moment quality enables Vereen to go on with the show despite personal challenges.

After all, he says, "it's a new audience and they haven't seen you. They deserve to see the show fresh."

Loeb remembers the time Vereen performed 10 days after his 16-year-old daughter Naja died in a 1987 highway collision.

Despite "unbearable grief," Vereen "gave a thousand percent" on stage, Loeb says. "He's got a spirit that will not quit."

Critical injuries

Vereen demonstrated similar tenacity when he came back after suffering critical injuries (to his liver, spleen, colon and one of his kidneys, in addition to a broken leg) when he was struck by a car in 1992.

That sort of thing would prompt many performers to hang up their dance shoes and take a final bow.

Instead, Vereen followed a rigorous rehabilitation regimen - and was back on Broadway less than a year later, appearing in "Jelly's Last Jam" opposite another song-and-dance dazzler, the late Gregory Hines.

"Of course," Vereen says when asked if he worried that he wouldn't be able to perform anymore.

But he "finally surrendered to a higher power," he says, and accepted his fate, whatever it might be.

Though Vereen admits "I can't do the cartwheels and the splits I did when I was 23," he's still determined to keep dancing through life.

"I teach my students to realize that you've got to be in the present," he explains. "You can't bring your baggage into the present." Not if "you want to receive the gift of the present."

Contact reporter Carol Cling at ccling@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0272.