Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2020 | 2 a.m.
Carrot Top has been performing in the same 350-seat Las Vegas Strip showroom for approximately 15 years. To say that this unmistakable comedian has become comfortable in his space is quite the understatement. But when he performs at Luxor on Friday night, his first live show in nearly eight months, comfortable won’t be the correct adjective.
Carrot Top’s comeback moves from his normal home, the Atrium Showroom, to the much larger Luxor Theater where Cirque du Soleil’s short-lived action show “R.U.N” was the last inhabitant. The theater holds more than 1,500 people but will be limited to 250 socially distanced showgoers, and the veteran Vegas headliner doesn’t know what to expect.
“I loved hearing that they finally set the date and we’re going to do it, but the restrictions that have been put in still scare me a little bit,” he says on the latest episode of the Sun on the Strip podcast. “It’s a different beast altogether, a big room with people spread out throughout the thing, and that’s something I’ve never had to experience. Comedy is so intimate. That’s the reason we have comedy clubs and rooms like mine. So this is going to be one of those things where I’ll get onstage that first night and experience what I’m going to experience and try to grow from it and each night, make it better.”
His show is one of seven different productions returning to three MGM Resorts properties on the Strip this week, which also includes “Fantasy,” the revue that has shared the Atrium room at Luxor with Carrot Top since he started performing there. “Fantasy” is also moving to the big theater and will have to make adjustments of its own to maintain the experience.
“Audience interaction and that kind of stuff is going to be hard [to replace] there, because it will be less intimate, less one-on-one with the audience, which I think is one of the things that makes my show fun,” Carrot Top says. “I get this kind of bond with the audience because we’re so close and they fell like by the end of the night, they get to know me as a person. But we’ll work on it and make the best of it, and that’s all we can do. Everyone is doing the same thing, just adapting to these challenges.”
One thing he knows for sure: he’s going to take it easy on the COVID comedy material.
“Everyone keeps asking me about COVID jokes and I’m not going to go crazy on that,” he says. “I don’t want people to come in and think about that so much. We’ll address it with some jokes and stories, touch on it, but I want people to have at least a touch of normalcy.”
Listen to this and more on the Sun on the Strip, also available at Apple Podcasts.
