Riviera closing sends producers scrambling

We still have a couple of months to celebrate the Riviera and mourn the inexcusable loss of Las Vegas history. Couldn’t they at least restore the original nine-story tower to its 1955 glory, make it a boutique hotel and build their convention center around it?

But the past couple of weeks have been too much of a scramble for sentiment. Show producers are caught up in the reality of what the Riviera has been in this young century: a roost for as many as eight lower-tier shows, all of which would rather move than disappear when the hotel closes May 4.

The musical-chair specifics were still in motion at this writing. But the landlords of downtown headliners said to be running on fumes — Louis Anderson, Gordie Brown and Frankie Scinta — are now in the position to decide if they are being pitched more attractive alternatives.

And David Saxe picked a good time to divide one of three show spaces to create a fourth inside his V Theater in the Miracle Mile Shops at Planet Hollywood Resort. Instead of one weirdly L-shaped room, he will have two venues seating fewer than 200 people.

The Linq, Stratosphere and Sin City Theatre in Planet Hollywood also could take in shows such as “The Rat Pack is Back,” which got supremely shafted. First, the Rio made it feel less welcome than a “Duck Dynasty” musical. So producer Dick Feeney waited for the Riviera’s storied Versailles showroom to be restored to what he called “a grand old lady.” The closing news broke only weeks before the faux Frank and Dean were to move into the room where the real ones sang.

“Crazy Girls” producer Norbert Aleman says April 30 will end his show’s status as the Strip’s second-longest running in one venue, behind Bally’s “Jubilee!” In the past 27 years, Aleman says his topless revue also became the longest-running burlesque show in the country.

But “Crazy Girls” went down for a few weeks in 2013, and for a time also seemed headed for Las Vegas history. Aleman says that in the past five years, almost all of his ticket-buyers came from outside the hotel.

So he sees the closing as a good news-bad news scenario.

“I’m in an old casino and I’m going to move to a much newer one. That makes up one loss for one gain,” he says, confident of his moving prospects.

The Riviera was still a front-line hotel in 1987, and “Crazy Girls” did three shows a night.

“The girls got spoiled. They got treated like queens. They had their own dressing rooms, their own showers,” Aleman says.

Now being forced to hunt for a new home is “like when you’re a millionaire and you become poor suddenly,” Aleman says.

Change the “suddenly” into “slow downward spiral,” and he could be talking about the Riviera as a whole.

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