By ROBERT N. JENKINS, Times Staff Writer
Published November 6, 2005
[Photo: Richard Grant]
Multiple costume changes, weighty headdresses, it’s all part of being a performer in the Jubilee! revue at Bally’s in Las Vegas says showgirl Paula Allen.
LAS VEGAS - Though Frank Sinatra endorsed the all-night qualities of Manhattan in New York, New York, that New Jersey homeboy spent his last decades performing in the city that really never sleeps.
This city encourages its conventioneers and adult vacationers to lose their inhibitions, spending millions to advertise its wink-and-nudge slogan, "What happens here, stays here."
To help things "happen," warehouse-sized casinos are open 24 hours a day and serve free drinks to gamblers. Tens of thousands of tickets costing up to $225 are sold each week for 90-minute extravaganzas featuring many of the biggest names in show business.
There is a lot of nudity in lavishly costumed musical revues. And the city is known for its strip clubs, where an admission of $20 or $30 lets customers ogle women who slither about on stage or on the patrons - for $20 per song.
Always thinking of you, dear readers, I took notes recently on Vegas After Dark. Here's what I found:
The nude revue
About a half-century ago, proper folks had to go to wicked Paris to see lovely women strut onstage in gaudy costumes that did not cover their breasts. After a while, these musical revues were produced in Vegas. For some reason, they still are.
The venerable Jubilee! at Bally's features 86 dancers - a few of them men - who during the show don a total of 1,000 costumes. That is not a mistake; Paula Allen, one of the four principal female dancers, wears 11 outfits.
Jubilee! includes parts of 53 musical numbers, with the showgirls (and showboys) moving in Busby Berkeley-style choreography on a stage almost 150 feet wide and several decks high.
A few times a week, Allen also leads backstage tours before the twice-a-night shows. Notes from her spiel as she took visitors about the costuming and makeup areas:
- The costumes use 10,000 pounds of jewelry, 8,000 miles of sequins and 30 sets of fans. Some of the fan costumes cost from $7,000 to $20,000 each.
- It takes about 20 minutes for the women to put on their makeup, in dressing rooms two stories below the stage. There are lots of numbers in which, Allen says, "You have to walk up and down 12-inch-high stairs, in heels, wearing a 20-pound costume, with 8 pounds of feather headdress on your head . . . and you have to do it topless!"
- Many of the costumes are so delicate that they can only be washed once a week, but as Allen put it, "You wear your own costume, so you smell your own stink."
- Dancers work six nights a week, starting at $650 a week. Every six months, the dancers have to reaudition for their jobs. About 25 dancers were let go after the most recent round of repeat auditions.
The club scene
In addition to the amateur and professional gamblers, Vegas attracts those who revel in excess and who like to be seen doing so. These are Mark L. Olson's kind of people.
The tall, slim Olson is director of marketing and sales for VegasHotSpots (vegashotspots.com), which makes its money seeing to it that you don't have to wait behind the velvet ropes at your favored club. Or clubs.
Olson says his company "takes great care in explaining that nightclubs work differently here than the rest of the country. Admission policies, seating, dress code can trip people up if they are coming from St. Pete, for example."
He adds, "Our typical party size is eight to 10 people, and they spend an average of $200 per person for dinner, limo and nightclub, or strip club. That includes all cover charges, tips, taxes. . . . We offer some things for as low as $60 per person, and we've put together parties that ran more than $3,000 per person."
The VIP treatment begins with being immediately allowed in clubs by football linemen-sized bouncers who all wear the unofficial uniform of black slacks, black blazer and black T-shirt, earpiece optional. Inside, as your eyes adjust to the darkness, you are led to a reserved table.
Some night spots have adopted bottle service: A full bottle of liquor is brought to your table for every three or four guests, and you may have either a host sitting with you or waiter hovering nearby, making sure your glass always holds ice cubes and liquor.
The cost for an average clubber: At the 51st-floor Voodoo Lounge at the Rio hotel, the cover charge Sundays through Wednesdays is $20, Thursdays through Saturdays, $30. This lounge offers its own VIP packages: Front of the line admission, table for four and one bottle of 42 Below Vodka, $400.
Tao, at the Venetian, is the newest club in Vegas, a 40,000-square-foot, multistory spot that reportedly cost $20-million. The main dance floor, a ramp or two above the entrance, was thronged on opening night in September. Standing near some banquettes, I could feel air vibrating from the bass notes booming out of a speaker behind my legs.
I walked to another level and there, a young woman in the requisite little black dress reclined atop a black-enameled table, pretending to give herself a sponge bath. Then she would pull on thigh-high black stockings, take them off and repeat the sponge routine.
She refused to discuss what the performance was about - artists are like that - and left. The table was about 20 feet from a wall that held 200 small statues of a Buddha-like figure, illuminated partly by votive candles. The statues formed the back wall of a bar.
The strip clubs
Like the nightclubs, these places charge $20 or $30 to get in.
Vegas was buzzing with the opening of a place named Scores - shock jock Howard Stern was flying in from New York, home of the original Scores, for that Saturday blowout. To promote the soft opening on a Wednesday, dozens of strippers in cocktail dresses handed out invitations at various dance clubs.
That's how I got my invitation, and it got me past the bouncers immediately, but I arrived too late for the "complimentary open bar and lavish buffet (by) executive chef Dennis Natoli . . . presented by Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin champagne."
I found no canapes, and the beers were $8. Thoughtfully, Scores has an ATM near the men's room (two attendants, at least a dozen cologne samplers).
That was the beginning and end of anything approaching "class."
Scores has a main floor and a curving staircase to a balcony. On the one stage being used there was one gleaming pole for the strippers. Men - and I only saw male customers - sit by the stage and toss dollar bills to show their appreciation.
After dancing, the women would move about the tiny tables and offer lap dances, at $20 per song. Upstairs, a manager told one woman talking to me and two friends that she could not stay unless we ordered a bottle of champagne. She moved on.
A while later, Olga Zeyer stopped by. She is statuesque, as are most of the women I saw that night. But Zeyer is also 42 and says she works part-time as a certified public accountant, "doing very complicated corporate work, during tax time."
Zeyer told me that she had been an accountant in Russia, with the equivalent of a master's degree, before emigrating 10 years ago.
She hadn't considered being a stripper, or doing lap dances, until about three years ago. "Then, my daughter (who was 18) was going to college, and I needed money for her . . .
"My girlfriend said, "Let's go try (stripping).' The first time I took my outfit off, I thought I would die. But it's nice enough . . . it's a job."
Depending on the venue, dancers pay management - that's right, the dancers pay - from $35 to $65 nightly to dance only onstage, but from $70 to $125 if they want to perform lap dances. They are also supposed to give the bouncers 20 percent of their earnings.
Petite Genevieve Donnelly of Arizona spoke of a career goal she can't realize:
"In high school, I was a cheerleader and in the Cinderella Pageant.
"Now I'm a dance teacher and I love to dance," she added, "but I'm just 5-foot-1 and I can never be a showgirl - you have to be at least 5-foot-7."
Her night at Scores was just her third night as a stripper.
"I absolutely love it. I was a little leery at first about the nude thing, but I'm comfortable with myself, with my body.
"And I prefer lap-dancing - there's more money."
IF YOU GO
FOR MORE INFORMATION: Tickets to Jubilee! are $65-$82, plus handling charges. For a few seconds' video of the show, go to www.caesars.com/ballys/lasvegas and when the video finishes, click on the logo for information and reservations.
To arrange VIP nights, go to www.VegasHotspots.com or call toll-free 1-877-862-3847.
For information on Scores, go to www.vegas.com/nightlife and click on "strip clubs." The Web site's home page offers a host of up-to-date information and reservations services.
