Las Vegas Sun

March 19, 2024

Talking about the Heart of Education Awards, ‘Madam Secretary’ and more with Erich Bergen

Erich Bergen

Erich Bergen returns to Las Vegas, and Cabaret Jazz, this week.

New York is home base now for Erich Bergen, but he’ll always have a deep connection with Las Vegas. The seasoned actor and performer is cozily entrenched on the East Coast where (in Brooklyn) he films Madam Secretary, the CBS political drama starring Téa Leoni as the secretary of state. But Bergen is likely still best known for his performance as Bob Gaudio in the film version and touring production of Jersey Boys, a favorite Vegas show at the Venetian for years.

Bergen is back in town this week, performing at the Smith Center April 30 and May 1 after hosting the second-annual Heart of Education Awards there on April 29. We caught up with him recently to talk TV, the arts, George Michael and more.

How important was it to come back to Las Vegas to host the Heart of Education Awards again, an event which recognizes local teachers who have gone above and beyond for their students? Well, my schedule is very hectic these days. We’re basically filming all year, July to April. Once that hiatus hits, it’s up to me to fill that time, but it’s tough to find projects that fill that time perfectly and fit into that section. But I jump at any chance to get back to Vegas. I love it there, I love the Smith Center, and this event is very important.

I thought it was such a great idea when Myron [Martin] pitched it to me last year, especially since I was just a terrible student growing up, just awful. Maybe this is my sort of public service I’m doing to make up for that. I only lived in Las Vegas for two years in 2008 and 2009 but for whatever reason, I really fell in love with the community there and got involved in many projects aside from Jersey Boys. I just felt very at home there, and found a wonderful community of people, especially artists, and I like coming back and being able to honor that.

Even if you were a bad student, you must have had some teachers that really made an impact. It’s funny, I was just talking to one of my best friends, she and I grew up together, and she’s a teacher, and she was telling me that right now in the world it’s a very confusing time to be a teacher … not just because of the Trump administration and things like that, but because kids are growing up faster than when we were kids. We don’t tend to listen to teachers as often as we should. As bad a student as I was, there were a handful of teachers that did get through to me and made a huge impact on me that I feel every time I step on stage. Mostly art teachers. But that’s another idea, that we need to listen to art teachers as much we do math teachers because they are making a difference in children’s’ lives in more ways than we realize.

What can we expect from your Smith Center shows? When I perform in concert, I like to turn it into a party. It should always be about the audience and not the artist. You should feel like you had a great time and are leaving different than you came in. I’m not the best singer in the world but I try to be a vessel for great entertainment. I try to do shows that are bright and fun and uplifting without being annoying. I love great melodies and lyrics, and the playlist in my head is everything from Gershwin to Donna Summer to Weird Al Yankovic to Jay Z. I try to mix it up and spit out something that is uniquely me, but there is a vintage feel to it … it will have an old fashioned Vegas feel to it but it’s not Rat Packy. I’m not pretending to be Sinatra. It’s a big show.

How’s life on Madam Secretary, which is in its third season? It is my first TV show so I’m more comfortable now, of course. The interesting thing recently is we’re doing a show about government while the government on the news is more dramatic than we are. So we have to think about producing dramatic television that is worthy of watching when there’s stuff we couldn’t even think of to write and create is happening just a few channels over and that is apparently real. That’s on our minds right now. But what’s great about it is it’s not just another show about government, it never has been, and this show has a new meaning now. So many critics in the beginning thought this is a thinly veiled [take] on Hillary [Clinton], and we’ve proven them wrong, so now we have this other thing, to explain who is our Madame Secretary now in the face of this [administration].

You’ve also managed to fit in the VH1 Save the Music Foundation benefit concert to remember George Michael, too, in New York. How did this event come about? This has a bit of Vegas connection, too. My entire life, my hero was Michael Jackson. He was my biggest inspiration as a performer. When Michael died, I had a strong desire to do something in Vegas to commemorate him, and George Maloof ended up donating facilities at the Palms and the community kind of rallied together in a massive way and we put on this giant concert on his birthday the year he died. We raised $100,000 for music education programs in Clark County public schools. It was an amazing thing to watch.

George Michael may not have had as much impact on me as a performer, but I was reading a friend’s Facebook page the day after he died, and there was this long essay about how important George Michael’s music was to him and why he fell into it. I just thought, okay, I know how to do this, so I called my friends and we put something together and went to VH1 and they loved it. And then we sold it out. It’s not that I’m in the business of doing tributes to superstars of the ’80s, but I think what tends to happen with these sometimes controversial artists is we focus on their mess and I’m more interested in their message—what they had to say when they were here. So let’s go back and listen to the music.

Erich Bergen performs at the Smith Center’s Cabaret Jazz space on Sunday, April 30 at 1:30 p.m.; and Monday, May 1 at 7 p.m. Tickets are $39-$65 and available at 702-749-2000.

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