Comedy clubs seek last laugh

With Brad Garrett opening shop at the Tropicana this week and Grandma Lee back for the rest of the summer at Bonkerz, it's clear comedy clubs are the Vegas hard times trend of 2010.

There are now seven club formats in the resort corridor, if you don't count the Palms, with its sporadic Playboy Comedy and now Matt Donnelly's weekly improv/celebrity tarot showcase.

Out of this pack, the L.A. Comedy Club at the Four Queens seemed the longest shot to clone itself and make it eight. Sure, the room built as the Canyon Club was the perfect setting, but lack of awareness for the downtown venue made it a hard climb.

The club celebrated its year anniversary Wednesday, and now branches out to a second operation -- and talk about higher profile -- inside the Wasted Space club at the Hard Rock Hotel.

Joaquin Trujillo, who oversees the operation, says he courted the Hard Rock for more than a year, and finally sold casino executives with a May audition show. The Hard Rock club is Friday through Sunday only and the two rooms will usually have separate lineups. Occasionally a warm-up act might drive from one to the other, but the Hard Rock focus will generally be on edgier comics that "fit the vibe and style" of the Hard Rock, Trujillo says.

As for the secret of success downtown? Trujillo says he has had his share of on-the-cusp comedians right before their big breaks, including Aziz Ansari and Natasha Leggero. But the real secret weapon might be the "all you can drink" ticket for $30. ...

David Saxe says he really needs "Vegas! The Show" to take off. The modest $200,000 budget he imagined for the tribute to the city's past has ballooned upward of $1.5 million, though much of that comes in technical upgrades to the theater at the Miracle Mile Shops at Planet Hollywood.

But he still has a few bucks to buy champagne for the audience. Early performances have walked a fine line between "dress rehearsal" and "ready for paying customers," so Saxe has been popping the bubbly and explaining the situation before the show. "They feel like they're part of it that way," he says.

Saxe is trying to prop up the cash flow with rent-paying tenants. The first is "Zen Magic," which was scheduled to open by today. It's a 4 p.m. offering starring Japanese illusionists Ai and Yuki. Youngsters younger than 10 get in free with a paid adult.

How will this one distinguish itself from other magic shows? It promises aerial acrobats and martial arts along with the illusions. ...

Officially, a Cirque du Soleil show failing in New York has nothing to do with Las Vegas. But anything Cirque-related can't help but ripple back to the company's stronghold, and I always wondered if one reason Lance Burton no longer felt the love at the Monte Carlo might be that "Banana Shpeel" had targeted his theater?

Just a hunch, mind you. And it probably won't happen now that the vaudeville-themed Cirque closed Sunday, faring no better off-Broadway than it did in Chicago previews. A more successful Broadway title, "Rock of Ages," might have a better shot at replacing Burton. ...

It's rubber-necker paradise on concert nights at Red Rock Resort, and mostly by design. The "Party on the Rocks" series is distinguished by the fact that the Rocks Lounge now hosting name acts every week -- from Modern English to the great rock band The Smithereens -- is the only Station Casinos venue that opens out to a view from the casino floor.

You will get shooed away if you clog the pathway in front of the lounge -- where John Cafferty & the Beaver Brown Band play Saturday -- without paying the 23 bucks to go in.

But if you're parked at a machine or roaming around? That's kind of what they want. "There is a different kind of energy when there's live entertainment in a casino," says Judy Alberti, who oversees entertainment for the company.

The weekly series revived the dormant room to coincide with the opening of the Yard House eatery. Alas, for those who live in other reaches of the valley, Alberti doesn't think the acts booked for the series could casino-hop for two-nighters, because they wouldn't come off as well in any of the other properties' larger, enclosed music halls. ...

This was an odd wish-fulfillment: My June 13 column tire-kicked the notion of some type of Las Vegas awards show to give ticketed shows a much-needed boost. As Review-Journal columnist Doug Elfman noted Monday, the Daytime Emmy Awards basically turned into that. Performance segments from five Las Vegas productions padded awards that most people don't care much about.

After my column, a couple of readers with good memories noted that back in the '70s, the American Guild of Variety Artists used to package a Vegas-centric awards show as well. With soap operas fading as a point of interest for the Daytime Emmys, perhaps some type of merger is in order?

Contact reporter Mike Weatherford at mweatherford@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0288.