Based on the 1994 Australian cult comedy-drama film, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, which follows the journey of two drag queens and a transsexual woman across the Australian Outback in a tour bus that they have named "Priscilla", Priscilla Queen of the Desert The Musical stars more than 500 Tony Award-winning costumes and enjoyed a 526-performance rave-review run on Broadway from 2011-2012, before launching a national tour last winter.
That tour was due to include a ten-week Las Vegas engagement at the Venetian, which commenced June 18. However, it seems that what Chicago Time Out described as "a gay fever dream in which men dressed as pink paintbrushes and cakes appear out of thin air to sing drag-queen standards by Madonna, Cyndi Lauper and Donna Summer [in which] a funeral is just a dance party in disguise, and buxom women with huge voices float in the air to provide the lip-synching men below with live music" proved too much for the the average Las Vegas tourist, and the run has been cut short due to "an analysis of ticket-sale trends" (as the official press release put it), meaning that tomorrow night is your last chance to catch this desert musical in the desert.
This comes as little surprise, following the fate of other successful Broadway shows that failed to transplant to the Strip, including The Producers at Paris, Avenue Q and Spamalot at Wynn, and Hairspray at Luxor. Evidently, if people want to see Broadway shows, they go to Broadway, while Las Vegas is more of a Celine/Cirque kind of city.
As for Priscilla, her next tour stop will be San Francisco, which we venture should be a much better fit. Here's the rest of the tour itinerary, if you fancy a fun and outrageously camp night out, featuring all your disco dance-floor faves and more false eyelashes than you can wave a mascara at:
