Las Vegas Spotlight: November 2008

Madonna, now on her “Sticky & Sweet” tour, will be bringing her own signature brand of spectacle to the MGM Grand Garden Arena on November 8 and 9. If it’s a laugh that you’re in the market for, head over to the Hilton Theatre on November 7 or 8, when George Lopez will be performing.

Cirque du Soleil’s latest show, Believe, has just opened at the Luxor. Cirque’s sixth extravaganza on the Las Vegas Strip is a vehicle for illusionist Criss Angel (best known for his TV show Mindfreak) and features a blend of mystery, magic, and Cirque-style theatrical flair. Meanwhile at the Onyx Theatre, the Insurgo Theater Movement presents Morphotic: A Kafka Story (November 6-22). Written by Shawn Hackler, the show is an adaptation of Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka’s tale of a man who goes through a terrible transformation.

It’s all slamming doors and silly fun on the Las Vegas Little Theatre mainstage this month, where Terrence McNally’s 1975 farce The Ritz (November 7-23) is playing. Trying to escape a hit man, a nice-guy businessman from Cleveland runs for cover in a gay bathhouse and wackiness ensues. Opening the same day at UNLV is The Nevada Conservatory Theatre’s production of Christopher Durang’s The Marriage of Bette and Boo (November 7-16). Unfolding in a whirlwind of 33 scenes, Durang’s dark comedy follows a man, his troubled marriage, and his dysfunctional family through the years.

Indiana during the time of the Dust Bowl is the setting of The Diviners (November 13-22), the first production in the Academy Theatre’s “Studio Series” at the Las Vegas Academy of International Studies, Performing & Visual Arts. Jim Leonard Jr.’s play concerns a brain-damaged young man with the ability to divine water and the wandering preacher who befriends him.

Finally, the biggest Las Vegas theater news to come down the pike recently is the announcement that The Lion King is heading to the Strip. Scheduled to open in May 2009, the production is the first of Disney’s big Broadway shows to settle here. The show will be taking over Mamma Mia!‘s vacated theater at the Mandalay Bay, which may be a good luck charm, seeing as how the ABBA musical ran there successfully for over five years. Unlike many previous Broadway transfers, The Lion King — which has all the spectacle associated with Vegas, but thankfully little of the gaudiness — will not pare down its running time.