Willie Robertson heeds the call of Las Vegas in ‘Duck Commander Musical’

By John Katsilometes

Published Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2015 | 11:01 p.m.

Updated Thursday, Feb. 12, 2015 | 12:01 p.m.

Call it “The Book of Redneck.”

The musical based on the A&E reality-TV series “Duck Dynasty” is flapping hurriedly to Las Vegas. The show is titled “Duck Commander Musical” with the Rio’s Crown Theater square in its cross-hairs. The production charts the unlikely path to fame of the Robertson family of “Duck Dynasty” fame, the clan from Monroe, La., who parlayed a duck call — the Duck Commander — into a retail and entertainment empire.

The show opens April 15, with pre-sale tickets available to Caesars Entertainment Total Rewards club members or those who “like” the musical’s Facebook page at 10 a.m. Thursday. The general public can purchase tickets ranging from $49 to $125 at 10 a.m. Tuesday at DuckCommanderMusical.com.

Heavy-hitters Tommy Mottola, the former longtime chairman of Sony Music, and Michael David of Dodgers Theatrical, produce the show. Dodgers Theatrical also produces “Jersey Boys,” in all of its forms, including the Broadway show and the production playing Paris Las Vegas.

Those folks will tell you that upward of 80 musicals of the Broadway variety, and the Duckfest is such a musical, fail within months. No matter. The Robertson family, especially Willie and his wife, Korie, are confident that Las Vegas tourists and residents will flock (hah) to see the stage adaptation of the book that sparked the musical, Willie and Korie’s book, “The Duck Commander Family.”

A few days ago, Willie spent a half-hour or so talking about the family, TV show and upcoming musical. Highlights:

It seems Korie and you have been the ones spearheading the musical, more so than anyone else in the family.

This is one that we took on, early on, and you know for the rest of the family — they were interested for sure. … All these trips to New York and Las Vegas, doing all the heaving lifting have definitely been us. We took that on from the start.

What about Las Vegas, from your perch, makes you believe this show can sell tickets here?

A lot of people pour through Las Vegas every year, and a lot of those people are coming from the Midwest and the South, which is good for the show. When I go to Las Vegas, it’s so hard for me to get around, anywhere. The last time I was there, I was literally ducking in and out of places, so I know we have a lot of great fans. The show is going to be like the TV show, a nice breath of fresh air. It’s going to be clean and funny, and it’s a great option for Las Vegas. It needs some options like this. I love Las Vegas, by the way. You know, I love being there, I love the food, all the stuff to do.

You were recently on a cruise where 3,500 people paid $3,500 apiece to spend time with the family, which is pretty amazing, but the show will have actors portraying the family. Is that going to be a disappointment to fans?

I don’t think so. The actors are so good, and they’ve got us down. I was so happy to see those characteristics, watching them play out, in rehearsals. It gives our fans another venue, a different way, to watch some of the things they like about our family.

We’re incorporated into it, too, on the video screens, during points in the show. They’ll see us. And I’ll try to be out as much as I can, find a way to be out there and see people coming out of the show, get their reactions. … I might just pop in there all the time, just to see how it’s going. I think it’d be fun watching people’s reactions to the show.

The ratings for “Duck Dynasty” are down significantly this year compared to last, with the premiere falling from about 12 million viewers last year to 8 million this year. Are those numbers a concern for the musical?

That doesn’t concern me at all. You now, we never had any aspirations of maintaining 12 million viewers every week, week in and week out. I think when the show started, there was a newness and a freshness about the show, but as it kept going, especially how A&E runs marathons nonstop, there’s so much of it out there, there’s kind of an overload.

But we are still the No. 1 show on cable, and we saw with “Dancing With the Stars,” when Sadie was on, there has been so much excitement about us. There has been no drop in enthusiasm. The difference between a musical and a TV show is you can’t just rerun it, you have to be there. It’s a product you have to consume live, and as people see the show and how good it is, they’ll start telling others about it, and it’ll be fine.

In the show, you’re addressing Phil’s comments about homosexuality last fall in GQ magazine, where he quoted from the Bible and compared homosexuality to bestiality. How did the family handle that issue, in fact and for the production?

The musical will actually be the most in-depth you will ever hear about what happened inside the family. What we’re depicting is very close to reality, with how we dealt with it. I’m kind of excited about that, and also kind of nervous. It’s raw and it’s out there, and it’s peeking into our family living rooms, when that went down.

But we know people will be interested in that, “What did go on with us?” I think the musical will be the only venue where you see that. It does it in a powerful way, and that’s good for our fans and even if you’re not a fan. It’ll be neat to be the fly on the wall to see how we dealt with it.

We all agreed, eventually, that it needed to be in the show and it needed to be told, and we just said, “Let’s put it in there.” It’s really who we are, as Robertsons, very open with the media and everyone about our lives.

In these types of instances, is Phil the family spokesman?

(Chuckles) No. He’s not a family spokesman. You know, Phil says what he says, he’s bold in how he says it. He’s authentic and he’s true to himself. That’s the way he is. I’m certainly a little more diplomatic. I have beliefs and all that but also work with all the people in Hollywood and the people in New York. Korie and I have, in the past, kind of spoken more for the family, but even then we don’t all agree.

... That's how we are, much like most families. We don’t always agree with everything we say or how we say it. Phil and (his wife) Kay are from a different time than we are, with different experiences, and there’s Sadie and John Luke and the kids who are a whole ’nother generation.

I think at our core, if you look at our common core of faith and family, all that’s the same. How we feel about our faith in the Lord, our spirituality and our Christianity and all that, hopefully people will see the good and the good things we’ve brought to Hollywood and the theater. We have a wide variety of friends, and we’ve made a lot of friends in New York in the theater world and also in Hollywood. That is now part of our story.

How did you persuade the officials with the Dodgers to invest in this show?

(Chuckles) Well, I didn’t sell to them. They actually came to me. They saw a powerful story and saw something very successful that had potential. … I am just now learning the business of Broadway and musicals, but the story is great, the cast is great, and we are all in this working together.

The show is about the making of the show, and how you’ve all become a big, happy family, right?

That is our story, and we are super-excited to bring it to Las Vegas.

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