Television promoting Vegas acts

Maybe we'll see the day when Donny Osmond, Criss Angel and Jerry Springer are on the same TV show. Stranger things have happened.

But for now, they're all pursuing what has become the preferred method of promoting a Las Vegas production. ...

News that Donny will go head to head with Tom "The Hammer" DeLay on the big ABC hit "Dancing with the Stars" only furthers his Flamingo residency with sister Marie as one of the few certifiable slam-dunks in the recent history of Las Vegas entertainment.

The Flamingo was wise to lock in the duo with a contract extension through Oct. 15, 2012. The two originally were courted by late impressionist Danny Gans and his manager, Chip Lightman, who produced under the name GansLight Entertainment.

Lightman says Gans' family is no longer financially involved in the Osmond show. He's helming it under the name Chip Lightman Entertainment. However, the giant building wrap on the side of the Flamingo is cost-prohibitive to change, so Gans' name will stay.

Lightman is still working with the Gans estate on the fall release of three products that will be sold separately and bundled together through selected outlets. A musical CD Gans finished months before he died and a full-length video of one of his Encore shows, shot in high-definition, will be released through the Hi Fi Recordings affiliate of the Music Publishing Company of America (which also has Donny and Marie on its roster).

Gans' autobiography will be released separately in October through Stephens Press, which is owned by the same parent company as the Review-Journal.

Donny and Marie return from a vacation on Tuesday. Starting Sept. 7, they drop the Tuesday show and go from five to four performances each week for the duration of Donny's run on "Dancing," which begins Sept. 21. ...

Meanwhile, Angel's fans welcomed back the fifth season of his A&E series "Mindfreak" last week. This one's a miniseason of only five episodes linked by a "five ways to die" theme, with a big stunt or escape in each. Since the live show at Luxor goes on, my guess is he lives.

Next week's episode, "Mass Levitation," is apparently the strongest tie-in with his live show; he is supposed to levitate the entire audience. But that begs the question: Whatever happened to a plan to fix "Believe," which many pronounced as dead on arrival?

The question was put to the producing partner, Cirque du Soleil, and the answer is, well, complicated.

Before Cirque had so many shows running around the world, it used to be that every designer involved in a show would all meet and work together to make changes, says Cirque spokeswoman Merri Hagan.

Now, selected designers and the stage director visit "a few times over the period of a year to 18 months and make gradual changes," she says.

"Believe" is "still in this gradual process" that won't be finished until the end of the year. So forget about any big Halloween-weekend anniversary bash inviting the press to reassess its opinion.

But neither does it sound as though "Believe" will become a "Le Reve"-type work in continual progress. "They have set a time frame for certain modifications to be made," Hagan says. ...

Who will take over the Paris Las Vegas theater? The 1,450-seat Theatre des Arts has sat vacant since "The Producers" closed 18 months ago, an unusually long sit for such a prominent piece of real estate.

The latest rumor is that Barry Manilow will jump ship from the Las Vegas Hilton at the end of this year. Hilton officials acknowledge they've heard that talk, but say no decisions have been made.

Other rumored candidates have fallen by the wayside or gone elsewhere. A Marie Osmond daytime TV show is on ice. A live version of "America's Got Talent" is going to Planet Hollywood, moving in with "Peepshow" for at least 10 weeks starting Oct. 7, with none other than Jerry Springer hosting.

Would you ever have pegged Las Vegas as a city that would host a performance of "Jerry Springer: The Opera" (as a 2007 one-off benefit) before the real one found a way to make money on the Strip? ...

Is the third time the charm for Andrew "Dice" Clay, the infamous comedian who really, really seems to want a full-time gig on the Strip? Today he launches a limited run in the Riviera showroom long occupied by "La Cage," but one he will be sharing with Charo through Sept. 6.

Clay played the back room of the Sushisamba restaurant last March, and magician Steve Wyrick's theater last month. ...

Hypnotist Dean Sterling, who performed as Dr. Naughty, died in January. But now his son, Corbin Craft, and a protege, Rolan Whitt, team up to perform the "Naughty Boys Hypnosis Show" at the Harmon Theater starting Aug. 27.

The two plan to perform each show together, not on alternate nights, as they often did when they were part of the original Naughty's act several years ago.

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