Question of the Day - 20 August 2014

Ah, yes, it's interesting that you raised this, since yesterday's QoD about alternative entertainment offerings and venues in Las Vegas reminded us of the very same thing. For those who haven't heard of Senses or the Giordano Theater here's a recap, courtesy of the last time we wrote about it, followed by an update (such as there is).

Back in January, 2013, we responded as follows to a similar QoD submission:

It was just a little over a year ago (Jan. 4, 2012, to be precise) that we first heard about plans for a new theater that was being built on the third floor of the Fashion Show Mall, of all the unlikely places (then again, they've just opened an avant-garde nightclub in the mall at Palazzo [Ed: That was the infamous The Act, which was closed due to allegations of obscenity] and there were plans -- since scuppered -- for a gun range in Venetian's mall, so...)

Anyhow, the "boutique" Giordano Theatre was billed as the "nation's first official live production/feature-film hybrid theater," boasting just 427 seats and featuring 7.2 Yamaha Surround Sound and 60p holographic projection. Several shows were due to open soon after the story broke, including Rich Natole's Voices (which has previously played at the Harmon Theater and the Trop) and Senses, an elaborately choreographed Chinese dance production featuring naked, but body-painted performers, telling the story of love while employing the use of all five senses.

We were intrigued, but months went by without any further word, so we shot an email to Christine Giordano, who responded promptly, and candidly, as follows: "The theater has experienced construction delays, due to our general contractor running off with large sums of money. We had to hire a new general contractor, move permits, vouchers, and much more. We are trying to get open late Sept. or early Oct. We will update the website to reflect same. Thanks for your patience and hope you understand. We want to get open as much as you want to see us open. Thank you."

More months went by and a follow-up email from us in December, 2012, remains unanswered, although Senses enjoyed a limited run in Las Vegas (which, we confess, completely passed us by, due to zero publicity coming our way) from Nov. 29 to Jan. 4 at the [temporary] "Giordano Theatre" at Treasure Island. [Ed: We included a link here to the Facebook page for the show, which was billed as the anchor production for the Fashion Show Mall venue, and seems to have elicited very positive feedback. That page has since disappeared, however, as far as we can tell.]

Meanwhile, none of the promised updates has been made to the original Giordano Theatre official website and, in the light of no response from our contact, your guess is as good as ours as to what's going on, although the phone number still works and the message says they're planning to open "real soon."

Fast forward a year and a half and the current status is:

• There is no Giordano Theatre (a venue which was also going to serve as a regular movie theater AND a state-of-the-art television recording studio) and the phone number is now disconnected, possibly due to whatever post-embezzlement budget there was left being entirely used up on maintaining the multiplicity of other related domain names still listed on the still-extant official Giordano Theatre website:

  www.GiordanoEntertainment.com www.GioBoxOffice.com www.IndyFilmShowcase.com www.SensesLasVegas.com www.RichNatole.com http://www.facebook.com/JeffTimmonsOfficial www.Benise.com www.VoicesTheShow.tv www.CelebrityEstateAuctions.com [Ed: Eh?!] http://www.arianblack.com

• According to said official website, Senses left for a stint in Macau but would "return to Las Vegas May 2013". Since this never happened, we hope none of our readers purchased tickets to the production, which were being offered at $39.95 for General Admission, up to $59.95 for VIP Producer Circle seats. There's still a link to purchase them, but the landing-page message reads: "Ticket sales on hold. Coming Soon." We're not holding our breath however, and advise our readers to follow our lead on that. We could find no evidence of the alleged Macau appearances, either, although the Treasure Island shows really did take place (we think: There's an expired Groupon to prove it, although the trailer promising "blink-and-you-miss-it glimpses of backsides" has been removed, much to our disappointment.) As even the show's producer was skeptical about a Chinese audience, stating in an interview with R-J entertainment columnist Mike Weatherford that, "Asians don't normally like to see other Asian shows. Asian men particularly love Western women," perhaps the Macau gig didn't work out, either.
• The website's promise that Senses would be the first resident Chinese production show in Las Vegas can no longer be fulfilled, on account of PANDA!, which continues its ongoing run at Palazzo.
• The only remaining Las Vegas link to this whole sorry fiasco that we're aware of is in the person of magician Rich Natole, who himself has been keeping a pretty low profile, but did surface back in September, 2013, as part of Tony Sacca's "50 Years in Showbiz" celebration, hosted by Boulder Station's Railhead venue, and then again just this past weekend, coincidentally enough, when he was named in the press release as co-host of a "Spirit of ’45" celebration at M Resort, featuring performances by the likes of former Lt. Gov. Lorraine Hunt Bono, Frankie Scinta, and The Las Vegas Tenors.

If we're able to make contact with Mr Natole, and he has any further light to shed on the whole Giordano/Senses saga, we will post an update, or a follow-up QoD.