Penn & Teller making profits magically appear; David Perrico clears the wall at Rocks Lounge

By John Katsilometes

Published Monday, Aug. 10, 2015 | 7:06 p.m.

Updated Monday, Aug. 10, 2015 | 9:05 p.m.

The Kats Report Bureau over the weekend was met with information that we are now in “Venus Retrograde.”

Not sure what that means, but, dang, I miss Bananarama.

As we recall the goddess on the mountaintop, we impart what we have unearthed on Planet Vegas:

• Penn & Teller are leaving them wanting more in their run at Marquis Theater in New York. The latest “financials” are the most impressive yet for the duo’s first Broadway run in nearly 25 years.

Figures released by Broadway League and reported today by The New York Times show that Penn & Teller turned in a $1.4 million gross last week, a number surpassed by only “Aladdin,” “The Book of Mormon,” “The Lion King” and “Wicked.” P&T have consistently sold more tickets since opening July 7 than any non-musical on Broadway.

The most recent audience counts, from last week, are 12,145 in eight shows, or 1,518 tickets sold per show in a 1,611-capacity theater. More important, the show’s producers have recouped their $2.85 million investment in the show (announcing that benchmark Friday), meaning shows now are turning pure profit.

The run ends Saturday, about the time Penn & Teller celebrate their 40th anniversary of their performing partnership. The latest name-checks to visit the production include Neil Patrick Harris, Julia Roberts, Joel Grey and Bernadette Peters. The Las Vegas show, which will incorporate many of the newly refined acts in the Broadway production, is back Aug. 22.

• The recent modifications at Rocks Lounge at Red Rock Resort have led to the departure of one of the lounge’s two acts — and one of the more artistically advanced shows in any venue in the city. David Perrico’s Pop Strings band has climbed the wall, as it were, by giving its one-month notice today (that would put the final date at Sept. 5, but Station Casinos could cut the band loose earlier).

The move was a collective band decision, and Pop Strings has a date at Cabaret Jazz on Sept. 25. Perrico was unhappy about the new glass wall that separates the performance venue from the bar and cut off visibility to the stage from those outside the newly erected partition. Perrico and his band complained about the glass structure from the moment that they first saw it on Aug. 1.

Perrico referred to the new barrier as a “vibe killer” and had asked for the black drape covering the glass to be taken down for at least a song to test how the room felt during a live performance — one of the long-proven architectural benefits of Rocks has been the visibility of the acts from the bar and casino. But Perrico’s request for that trial run went unheeded.

To remind: Station officials said the changes at the lounge were enacted to improve the quality of the sound in the room, as noise from the bar and casino floor seeped into the club. Rocks now feels like a more permanent, proper nightclub than a lounge.

Perrico’s band was one of the last acts to be signed by former Station Casinos entertainment exec Judy Alberti, who left the company in January to open her own entertainment consulting company (Alberti is now working with Dollar Loan Center founder Chuck Brennan, who has taken over Badlands Entertainment Group in Sioux Falls, S.D., and booking shows at his venues).

Featuring a seven-piece string section and some of the top musicians and vocalists in the city, Pop Strings had performed at Rocks Lounge for eight months through last Saturday. They developed a solid following at Rocks Lounge in a weekend lineup piloted by Zowie Bowie’s Top 40 dance spectacular on Fridays (and Z.B. is staying put, though that act has dropped its intermission for concerns over losing its audience).

None of the performers were consulted or notified of the changes at Rocks Lounge until the nights they appeared; no one knows that room better than Z.B. frontman Chris Phillips, who has performed there on Fridays since the hotel opened nine years ago. The construction of that glass edifice might make sense on some level, but, through the big, black drape, I can’t see it.

• There’s been a shakeup in the lineup at “X Comedy,” the new production at Bugsy’s Cabaret at Flamingo Las Vegas. Announced over the weekend is that Joe Trammel, the prop-wielding “TV Guy” known primarily for his long run in “V — The Ultimate Variety Show,” is out. He reportedly performed at Sin City Comedy at Planet Hollywood on Sunday.

The reason given by “X” co-producer Angela Stabile was that Trammel was let go for “personal reasons,” which is different than “personnel reasons” and “impersonal reasons.”

Also vacant from the show at the moment is Piff the Magic Dragon, but his departure is at once planned and temporary. Appearing Tuesday night in the quarterfinals of NBC's “America’s Got Talent” at Radio City Music Hall Piff is also booked to perform at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe from Friday through Aug. 29 and back at Flamingo on Sept. 3 (voting on the "AGT" performances runs from the broadcast Tuesday through noon Wednesday, so get on it). Comic Todd Paul, a very tall and funny man, is subbing through this month.

Remaining in the show are Dennis Blair (and his guitar), for 20 years the opening act for George Carlin; and co-hosts Nancy Ryan and John Bizarre. These two are married, and one of them (John) is a very good baker.

• Worth more than a note (and we’ll catch up for an interview aye-sap) is the departure from Las Vegas of Mukhtar Omar Sharif Mukhtar. “M-Squared” as I like to call him, was the director of the two most recent Cirque du Soleil “One Night For One Drop” charity shows, a longtime Cirque artist and choreographer and one of the brilliant people I’ve met in Las Vegas. He’s now taken his family — wife Sylvia and twin daughters Leelah and Nahla — to Montreal, where he has been assigned a new role with Cirque’s corporate office.

M-Squared’s new position is director of the company’s special events department, 45 Degrees. As he says, “I will take it a year at a time.” Owing to some shtick, we expect that he’s already making a splash.

Follow John Katsilometes on Twitter at Twitter.com/JohnnyKats. Also, follow “Kats With the Dish” at Twitter.com/KatsWiththeDish.