Friday, May 4, 2001 | 8:52 a.m.
It's a stacked deck.
The Broadway Theatre Company of Las Vegas is betting it will deal a full house when the curtain rises in December on its first full-production Broadway show starring theater and film star Anne Jeffreys.
The company's inaugural three-show 2001-2002 season kicks off Dec. 21 at the Orleans Showroom with "Mame," starring Jeffreys, and continues with "Dreamgirls" and "Damn Yankees," starring '50s TV hunk Tab Hunter.
Each show will star one or more celebrities from theater, television, motion picture or recording industries, said Christopher Tompkins, executive producer of the Broadway Theatre Company.
The productions will run three weeks each with eight shows per week, Tuesday through Saturday. Matinees will be offered on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
Jeffreys, of ABC's soap opera "Port Charles" and the films "Flying Tigers" and "Step Lively" co-starring Frank Sinatra, was at first reluctant to come out of her four-year retirement from the stage.
But the thrill of theater, her first love, and Las Vegas were too tempting to pass up, she said.
"Las Vegas needs some legitimate theater," Jeffreys said at a recent media event to launch the Broadway Theatre Company. "This is the full version, not a cut production, with big costumes, big sets. This is Broadway."
The season continues Feb. 14 with the opening of "Dreamgirls," starring Grammy Award winners Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Jr., members of the Fifth Dimension who also enjoyed success as a duo.
"Dreamgirls" director Robert Clater has won several regional awards this past year for his production of "Dreamgirls" at the Civic Light Opera of South Bay Cities in Redondo Beach, Calif.
The production also stars Kecia Lewis, who recently won the Los Angeles Theater League's 2000 Ovation Award for Best Lead Actress in a Musical for her portrayal of Effie White in "Dreamgirls."
Lewis has starred in other Broadway productions such as "The Gospel at Colonus" with Morgan Freeman, but said playing on a Las Vegas stage is equal to the prestige of Broadway.
"If you are in Vegas you have arrived, just like in New York," Lewis said. "There's a certain professionalism about it."
"Damn Yankees" starring Tab Hunter, will wrap up the season April 12. Hunter played the young Joe Hardy in the 1950s film version of the production, and returns to the stage to play the older, cunning Mr. Applegate.
Hunter hesitated when the Broadway Theatre Company of Las Vegas first approached him. He has not played onstage in a "good 20 years," he said.
"I'll have to resurrect my past life for this one," Hunter said. "But the (Orleans) stage is wonderful and it will be fun to be on the stage again."
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