Las Vegas Spotlight: April 2005

There isn’t much new on the Las Vegas Strip this month, but in the less glittery parts of town there is something for everyone. Musical and dramatic classics, and both new and lesser known plays are all on the Vegas stage in April.

Already underway and playing on until April 23 at the Summerlin Library and Performing Arts Center is the magical Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Cinderella. There have been no fewer than three TV versions of this charmer, starting with the 1957 original featuring Julie Andrews, but opportunities to see this R&H adaptation of the classic fairy tale onstage are rare, so now’s your chance. The tuneful score features songs such as “In My Own Little Corner,” “Ten Minutes Ago,” and “Do I Love You Because You’re Beautiful?” Kelly Fotheringham and Brandon Albright star as Cinderella and her Prince, and, in a bit of inspired non-traditional casting, Steve Huntsman and Keith Dotson play Cindy’s wicked stepsisters.

The Las Vegas Little Theatre continues offering entertainment for the sleepless with their Insomniac Project, through April 10. The Project offers a pair of one-act dramas on the theme of “he said/she said”: Hopscotch, by veteran playwright Israel Horovitz (best known for his Off-Off-Broadway sleeper hit Line, which has been running for over 30 years), is a two-hander about a couple reunited after years apart, and Trip’s Cinch is a play by Phyllis Nagy which examines the question of guilt in an alleged rape.

J.P. Miller’s Days of Wine and Roses will be presented by the Community College of Southern Nevada Performing Arts Department at the Horn Theatre on the Cheyenne Campus. This story of a young couple and their love for both each other and for the bottle is probably best known from the 1962 film starring Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick. The CCSN production, directed by Walter Niejadlik, will play from April 14-24.

On April 28, the Las Vegas Academy will be bringing a great and uncompromising literary work to the stage with its production of Native Son, adapted by Paul Green and Richard Wright from Wright’s seminal novel about a young black man in 1930s Chicago who finds himself in a downward spiral after murdering a woman in a moment of panic.

After all that, the Asylum Theatre will bring some much-needed comic relief with the Nevada Premiere of Wait!, by Salt Lake City playwright Julie Jensen. This wacky comedy about a truck driver who discovers that the theater is her true calling begins performances on April 29.

If you’re still hankering for a little of the famous Vegas glitz, you now have another chance to see Havana Night Club — The Show, which was to end its run at the Stardust Hotel & Casino on April 11, but has now been extended through September 5. Featuring a slew of superb Latin singers, musicians, and dancers, this show brings a little bit of Cuba to the Stardust. Finally, Rent, the groundbreaking musical about a group of bohemian artists living in New York City at the end of the millennium, takes up residence at the Aladdin Hotel & Casino from April 23-28.