Shows buck usual path to success

Had any reason to check out the Broadway listings lately? A couple of titles might strike you as familiar.

I'm not talking about the three musicals we currently share with New York, but two new hits. They're eyebrow-raisers in general, but even more to anyone here who remembers them as nonstarters on the Strip.

The ballroom dance revue "Burn the Floor" is setting house records at the Longacre Theatre -- grossing $665,000 in a recent week -- after opening Aug. 5. The revue had a 10-week limited run at Luxor in the fall of 2006, before Cirque du Soleil moved in to remodel the theater for Criss Angel.

And theater snobs all over New York are shaking their heads at the success of "Rock of Ages," an '80s-themed musical that repurposes Whitesnake and Poison hits as show tunes. It played a two-week test run at the Flamingo Las Vegas in 2006, but its butane lighter flame quickly flickered out.

Now both shows are bucking the established path of hits such as "The Lion King": Broadway, followed by long sits in big cities and weeklong tours of smaller ones -- about 11 years of it for the Disney hit -- and then maybe one last chance to milk the cash cow on the Strip.

Going the other direction is rare. The Queen musical "We Will Rock You" is an ongoing success in England, but the humor and deeper appeal of Queen didn't translate to what became a nice try on the Strip in 2004, chilling plans for a Broadway launch.

The new Broadway hits aren't direct apples-to-apples comparisons to what we saw on the Strip; both have evolved significantly in content. And "Burn the Floor" is pumping up its marquee value with rotating guest stars such as Anya Garnis and Pasha Kovalev.

"I believe in right place and right time. Some people would call that luck," says "Burn" producer Harley Medcalf. "The truth is, the harder you work the luckier you become."

"Burn" only had 10 weeks to build traction at the Luxor. Much of that time was spent learning the mechanics of selling tickets on the Strip. "It's hard to compete in Las Vegas as a short-run show," Medcalf says. "There's so much (ticket) inventory. We had to convince everybody we were worthy of listing by the quality of our show. We worked hard at that every day," even having the dancers visit ticket outlets to drum up support.

And while TV's "Dancing with the Stars" and "So You Think You Can Dance" already were hits in 2006, "now (they're) an institution." The stars "bring celebrity status with them," and any return to the Strip would include them.

That trail-blazing loop seems likely if "Burn" sustains its out-of-the-gate momentum on Broadway. "Coming to Las Vegas was one of our dreams and still is again. To come back and top what we did before," Medcalf says. "I don't think we've fulfilled our potential in Las Vegas."

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