Have no fear. "Le Rêve (The Dream) is not closing," says Wynn Resorts. (The redundant double title of the show is legacy of Marilyn Winn-Spiegel’s tenure at Wynn Las Vegas, which saw an uncharacteristic effort – for Wynn – to dumb down the product.) Although it goes through a new iteration every six months, since its debut on May 6, 2005, Le Rêve has been a consistently reliable box-office draw for Wynn, racking up thousands of performances. This is despite fearsome technical requirements that include scuba certification of all performers and the need to fill a semi-submerged playing area that can hold up to a million gallons of water. Patron-friendly design ensures that no seat in the theater is more 40 feet away from the stage.
The closest thing that Le Rêve has had to a closing notice was a month-long shutdown in 2007. Pregnant women plunging into the pool and a bevy of clowns were cut, and 15 minutes were trimmed from the show’s length. Although relations between Steve Wynn and director Franco Dragone were strained by this point, they collaborated on the new scenario – although Dragone was eventually bought out of the show and would go on to try a similar concept, House of Falling Water, at City of Dreams Macau.
Wynn took advantage of the 2007 hiatus to revamp the Le Rêve theater. According to the Las Vegas Sun, Wynn spent $10 million to add "wider seats, new carpets, a better sound system and a layout that removes almost a quarter of the 2,100 seats to add a VIP section with TV monitors showing underwater action in the million-gallon tank." Although the show’s long-term prognosis had looked iffy up to that point, the new-look Le Rêve has been a steady draw ever since and even offers an underwater-viewing experience for qualified Scuba divers.
One Wynn Resorts show that has not proven to have ’legs’ is Steve Wynn’s Showstoppers, a collection of Broadway’s greatest hits that, Wynn hoped, would create a new, younger audience for the Great White Way. It was to have gone dark on Sept. 30. But there’s a ray of hope, supporters of the show having emerged from apparent concealment.
"Due to the outpouring of enthusiasm and support for the musical spectacular in the weeks following the announcement of the show’s closing, ShowStoppers has been extended to December 31, 2016," states Wynn Resorts. So if you haven’t seen the show – and it is an impressive combination of solo vocalism and swirling choreography, backed by a full orchestra (Las Vegas Philharmonic concertmaster DeAnn LeTourneau leads the ensemble) -- now you’ll have at least three more months in which to experience it. The recreation of Michael Bennett’s original choreography of "One" from A Chorus Line is alone worth the price of admission, in our humble opinion.
