What was behind the sudden decision to close the Cocktail Cabaret at Caesars Palace? It seemed like a great-quality show featuring top-notch performers and low production costs. Especially with cast member Daniel Emmet gaining national notoriety by recently having advanced all the way to the finals of "America’s Got Talent," you'd think it would be picking up steam, not shutting down abruptly.
And
The Cocktail Cabaret closed at Cleopatra's Barge at Caesars Palace, only to end up reopening there in the same location five weeks later. Was it some sort of hardball contract renegotiation? Rumor has it it's now going to have a slightly different format, with an emcee and a comic this time around.
When it was announced that Cocktail Cabaret was closing, director/arranger Keith Thompson put the best face he could on it.
“Caesars closing the show at Cleopatra’s Barge is the bad news. The good news is that we believe in our show and we are actively pursuing other venues at various properties within the Caesars family to be our new home. For now, we have nothing confirmed, so we will just take a much-needed hiatus while we re-tool and adapt for the next chapter, and hopefully we can have a deal in place in time for a yuletide version of the Cocktail Holiday Cabaret to offer through the upcoming season. … We’ve had an exciting 10-month run and we were fortunate to have had the support of Caesars Entertainment, which took a chance on our small unique show with no spectacle or big-name celebrities.”
That lack of celebrities may have been part of the problem. Las Vegas Review-Journal gossip and entertainment columnist John Katsilometes says, “It was comparably high priced, about $50 after fees, which is rather high for a 1-hour 15-minute show with no real stars.”
As for Emmet, Kats wrote, “Daniel effectively left the show as he made it to the ‘AGT’ finals. So he was no longer a draw for the show. Daniel had been invited back, but he never did rejoin the cast.”
As for any hardball going on, we haven't heard rumblings of discontent from either the Caesars Entertainment or Cocktail Cabaret camps. As best we can tell, both were working in tandem to find a means of keeping the show alive, announcing that it would try to revive it in a different venue (even though 140-seat Cleopatra’s Barge is ideally suited for the format of the lounge act). As noted in the second question, the show was revived November 21 — in Cleopatra’s Barge. Caesars has given Cocktail Cabaret a provisional reprieve, running through New Year’s Eve, when the show’s long-term fate will presumably be evaluated.
And yes, there is a new format to the show. Regular performers Niki Scalera, Eric Jordan Young, and Maren Wade return (Young has particularly impressive Strip credentials, which include Rock of Ages and Vegas! The Show), along with keyboard player Philip Fortenberry, well-remembered for his concerts at the defunct Liberace Museum. (Those were Fortenberry’s hands you saw tickling the ivories in the HBO biopic Behind the Candelabra.) He’ll be backed by a percussion/bass/saxophone trio.
Up front will be an array of guest-star vocalists: James D. Gish (Nov. 21-24), Jersey Boys’ Travis Cloer (Dec. 5-12), Ron Remke (Dec. 26-29) and Savannah Smith, who spells Scalera November 21 and 23. Guest emcees will be former Phantom of the Opera star Brent Barrett and comedian Tony Arias, although their appearances are no more definite than “various dates throughout the holiday season.”
So it sounds like you never know quite what to expect when you show up for Cocktail Cabaret, but we think that’s part of its appeal.
