The Kats Report Bureau on Saturday night could be found at Table No. 43 at Smith Center’s Cabaret Jazz and Table No. Whatever at Tuscany Suites’ Piazza Lounge.
Long a favorite in VegasVille, the singing-piano tandem of Jim Caruso and Billy Stritch (they have hosted the slam-bang Cast Party a few times at Cab Jazz) was joined by the stunning Jane Monheit for “Hollywoodland: Songs From the Silver Screen,” a collection of movie classics dating all the way back to the 1920s.
It’s a fun scene, with such sing-alongs (and whistle-alongs) as “Whistle While you Work,” “It Happened in Sun Valley” and “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” summoning the goose bumps. I have long dug Caruso and Stritch, appreciating their appreciation of Las Vegas, and Monheit is just stunning. Beautiful performer. She is good as it gets, and that counts everyone.
The show runs again tonight at 6 and 8:30. We’ll also re-plug the show across the way at Troesh Studio Theater, “Miss Margarida’s Way,” starring Annette Houlihan Verdolino of “Menopause The Musical” at Harrah’s. Performances remain today at 2:30 and 7 p.m., and Sunday at 2:30 p.m. The side-by-side shows at Boman Pavilion are unalike, aside from all the talent.
Similarly lauded is Piazza, which might be a surprising piece of information unless you know that Cheryl Daro joined bowtied piano host Kenny Davidsen and his band The Approximators for an evening of film and show tunes. Daro just finished a cruise-ship run of “Rock of Ages” on Norwegian Cruise Lines. Daro plans some “gigging” at such spots as Piazza while she and her husband, Mark Shunock (the demure performer who plays Lonny in “ROA” at Venetian), sort out the Vegas show’s future.
Shunock and a few of his “ROA” castmates ambled into Tuscany after their show Saturday, as did a few of the “Million Dollar Quartet” performers, who are understandably a bit antsy about their show’s future in the face of yet-confirmed reports that Human Nature is headed to their showroom. As I tweeted at the time, Piazza should have been renamed the Show-Shuffle Speakeasy. At this moment I remain more confident in “Rock of Ages” moving to the Rio than anything related to Human Nature’s move to a new room.
Onward:
• Citing concerns over security and safety, Criss Angel has made every attempt to keep the status of his immediate family of the news media. Angel’s fans, dubbed The Loyals, are a fervent and (at times) unsettling lot who have showed up backstage at Luxor and at Angel’s estate while seeking personal contact with the star.
But this week’s news that Angel’s 20-month-old son, Johnny Crisstopher Sarantakos, has been diagnosed with leukemia has prompted Angel to make the little boy’s name public (Angel’s given surname is Sarantakos). As announced Friday in a news release authorized by Angel, the Luxor headliner has headed to Australia to be with his son and has spiked his Vegas production show “Believe” through Nov. 1.
Though Angel has kept Johnny and the boy’s mother (who lives in Australia, the reason for the magician’s visit there) away from media coverage, there has been a hint of the child’s identity in “Believe.” Those who pay attention have noticed this: Months ago, one of the characters in the show was renamed “J.C.,” which we have come to understand is indeed a nod to Johnny Crisstopher.
• By summer 2014, the partnership between Spiegelworld and Coastal Luxury Management at Rose. Rabbit. Lie at Cosmopolitan had imploded to rubble like the old Dunes hotel, which long occupied that parcel on the Strip.
This was shortly after the stage show “Vegas Nocturne” closed and Spiegelworld and the Cosmopolitan wound up suing each other in a volley of acerbically worded complaints. The litigation between the production company and hotel was settled in May (terms not disclosed).
As the two sides hammered out an agreement, Ross Mollison joked at April’s “Absinthe” fourth-anniversary party that his hit show would actually be moving from Caesars Palace to Cosmopolitan. Wow, is that not happening.
But the latest twist in these crisscrossing relationships is that Spiegelworld and Coastal Luxury Management are again talking of again joining forces for a Rose. Rabbit. Lie.-fashioned restaurant, speakeasy and entertainment hovel in Vegas. Mollison and CLM founder David Bernahl are to meet next week in Los Angeles, as Molllison is there to help launch the latest version of a streamlined “Vegas Nocturne” at Three Clubs in Hollywood (the comedy showcase runs Sunday through Friday). Bernahl’s company operates Faith & Flower restaurant in downtown L.A.
In collaborating with CLM and then-hotel President John Unwin, Molllison was involved in the early development of the Rose. Rabbit. Lie., with his “Vegas Nocturne” performers also entertaining dinner guests in the lounge and restaurant. It was never an ideal blend, with Mollison interested primarily in producing and promoting “Vegas Nocturne” and the hotel focusing on its entire show-restaurant-lounge experience as a single entity.
The project being brandied about now seems similar to the RRL template, but would not be called Rose. Rabbit. Lie., as that name and venue belongs to Cosmopolitan owner The Blackstone Group. Come to think of it, no one has ever formally explained that name, one of the many concerns of clarity about that nightspot at the Cosmopolitan.
Maybe, hopefully, this new thing will be properly described — when the time comes, of course.
Follow John Katsilometes on Twitter at twitter.com/JohnnyKats. Also, follow Kats With The Dish at twitter.com/KatsWithTheDish.
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