Poor Steve Wynn. His track record with theatre remains spotty. We seem to be stuck with the awful, endlessly rejiggered Le Reve in perpetuity, but now "Avenue Q" successor Spamalot is getting evicted. July 13 is the last performance. The dire announcement was made last night, then fanned out across the 'Net today. Apparently, playing to 80% of capacity just isn't good enough.

This is really a shame, as Spamalot could be compared without apology to its Broadway progenitor. Its production values were B'way scale and some of the cuts made for Vegas actually improved the show (which plays well at approx. 90 minutes, unlike the disastrously truncated The Producers). And I don't say any of this because I was plucked from the audience one night and given the "Best Peasant" award ... though it did warm the cockles of this lifelong Monty Python fan's heart.

Spamalot was truly a fine and noble addition to the lineup of Strip entertainment, and Nikki Crawford's portrayal of the Lady of the Lake was arguably even finer than that of Tony-winning Sara Ramirez in the original cast. As popular as John O'Hurley's King Arthur may have been, I actually found Randal Keith's interim stint in the role to be more credible and actually quite poignant at times -- a worthy successor to Graham Chapman in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Once the drawbridge is raised for the last time, the theater will be re-remodeled and, as the Encore Theater, will host Danny Gans. A Gans-Wynn reunion is as unsurprising as tomorrow's sunrise. Gans defected to Mirage Resorts after an acrimonious split with Harrah's Entertainment. Once Wynn was out of the picture, relations soured between Gans and new boss MGM Mirage, which accused him of having a grass-is-always-greener mentality.

It will be interesting to see how the renewed Gans-Wynn relationship plays out -- and whether Wynn will require Gans to shoulder a heavier workload (i.e., more than four nights a week).

[Email Blogger]