Singer feels love for Vegas

Reva Rice appreciates the irony. She's singing in the new "Vegas! The Show," which celebrates the good old days. But she was there for the birth of the new Vegas.

Rice was straight from Broadway when she opened "Starlight Express" at the Las Vegas Hilton in 1993. The show ran four years but is more or less forgotten now. Cirque du Soleil's "Mystere" opened at almost the same time, and it's considered the watershed point when Vegas entertainment switched from past to present.

But the Hilton bordered on heresy when it ripped into Elvis Presley's showroom, pulling the tables and booths and putting in a racetrack stage for an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical on roller skates.

That -- along with a full-sized diesel-engine replica at the opening-night party -- made a big impression on Rice. She opened the Broadway version of "Starlight" in 1987, then moved to the London cast and was starting to wonder, "Where's my career going?"

"But when they called and mentioned Las Vegas, I thought, 'Maybe I should do it one more time. This might be something that could launch the career even better because it is in Vegas.' "

Instead of moving to Los Angeles, "I walked into the city and fell in love. I knew that Vegas was going to become the next entertainment mecca. I knew it was going to grow and have all the entertainment opportunities New York or L.A. would have."

With the rest of us, she's seen the highs and lows since 1993. She saw "how easy it was to put productions up compared to New York," both the big showroom spectaculars and speculative workshop productions, such as Clint Holmes' "Just Another Man." "The resources were much more abundant here."

On the other hand, more Broadway musicals than not -- including "Monty Python's Spamalot," which she was part of -- did not enjoy Cirque levels of longevity. "Some Broadway shows work here, some don't," she says. "They have to be something people immediately identify with."

It's mostly moot now. A year so bearish on big investments finds "Vegas! The Show," a medium-budget entry that would have been small potatoes in 2006, becoming one of the biggest ventures of the year.

"In this economic situation, people are really looking for organic entertainment and connection with people," Rice says. "Celebrities and people who really come down and relate to you like they were in your living room," she says of the show's old-school ethic.

"I never see Vegas going under, because it's constantly changing. It adjusts to its market as opposed to trying to make its market adjust to it."

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