Gabe Ginsberg
The cast and crew of “Extravaganza” celebrate at Bally’s.
Thursday, Nov. 11, 2021 | 2 a.m.
If you love pianos and dirty jokes and you haven’t been downtown to see Sarah Hester Ross at Notoriety, act now. She has two Thursday night shows left in her limited engagement, tonight and November 18, and you’re going to have a very sad Thanksgiving if you don’t catch this one. I thoroughly enjoyed Ross’s creativity and comedic stylings, even though she mistook me for her ex-boyfriend Carl when interacting with the audience during a performance of one of many of her original songs. Apparently, Carl wasn’t the greatest boyfriend. You can also catch Ross at the Bar at Times Square at New York-New York, doing the dueling pianos thing, but the Notoriety show is all original material with a killer band to boot, and I’m hoping she finds another regular gig like this one.
A couple of major milestones for a couple of spectacular Strip productions were celebrated this week. “Extravaganza” at the Jubilee Theater at Bally’s celebrated its 500th performance on Tuesday, an incredible accomplishment considering the show had its first and only preview performance on March 14, 2020, right before the Strip shut down to fight the spread of COVID. It came back to life almost one year ago, on November 23, and has been thrilling audiences of all ages ever since. And a couple doors down on Las Vegas Boulevard at the Flamingo, “RuPaul’s Drag Race Live” celebrated its 100th show on Saturday. It also opened in early 2020 and reopened this year on August 5 in the Flamingo Showroom, bringing back all the music, fashion and excitement from the popular TV version to the live stage in Las Vegas.
A handful of newly announced concerts and entertainment events this week include: Metal favorites Killswitch Engage at Brooklyn Bowl on February 19; essential jam band Widespread Panic at the Theater at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas on March 11-13; and a whole slate of comedy shows at Encore Theater at Wynn Las Vegas in 2022, starting with Sebastian Maniscalco in January — who has a dozen dates through May — and continuing with stand-up performances from Whitney Cummings, Chris Distefano, Andrew Santino, Taylor Tomlinson, Tom Papa, Nate Bargatze, Jim Gaffigan and Demetri Martin.
Wayne Newton is healing up after a back injury delayed his return to active Strip headliner status last month at the Flamingo, but he was out and about over the weekend. Newton hit the Sunset Station Amphitheater in Henderson to catch a concert from Kevin Costner & Modern West Saturday night and visited with the actor and musician backstage. “Such an incredible talent,” Newton wrote on Instagram of Costner’s performance.
Speaking of celebrity audience members, Gloria and Emilio Estefan were at Encore Theater to catch Lionel Richie’s residency show on Friday night and spent some time with their fellow pop music legend after the performance. Richie will be back at Wynn in January.
The MSG Sphere project has moved into an important new phase of construction behind the Venetian. The 20,000-seat, cutting-edge entertainment venue, projected to open in 2023, has shifted to interior construction with the building of a 730-ton steel framework structure that will support the LED display expected to become one of the world’s biggest and most dynamic screens — a 160,000-square-foot LED surface that wraps up, over and around the audience to create a fully immersive visual environment. Construction on the structure will continue into next year.
