WEEKEND EDITION
March 26 - 27, 2005
What: "The Magic of Rick Thomas."
When: 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. daily (dark Wednesday).
Where: Stardust's Wayne Newton Theater.
Tickets: $19.95 and $24.95.
Information: 732-6111.
To borrow a classic term, Rick Thomas is a tall drink of water. At 6 feet 4 inches, the longtime Las Vegas magician carries himself gracefully, making nary a sound as he moves.
Sort of like a cat.
For years Thomas has incorporated exotic animals -- including white tigers -- into his act at the Tropicana, where he was the hotel's afternoon headliner for eight years. Thomas' contract with the hotel ended on St. Patrick's Day, giving him a chance to relocate to the more spacious Wayne Newton Theater at the Stardust.
Thomas' revamped show opened Friday; he performs at 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. daily (dark Wednesdays).
By coincidence (or maybe not), Thomas' replacement at the Trop is "Xtreme" magician Dirk Arthur, who is the only other performer on the Strip to employ white tigers in his production.
Competition on the Strip, even among afternoon shows, is spirited -- along with Arthur, Thomas is going head-to-head with such established performers as comic magician Mac King at Harrah's, ventriloquist Ronn Lucas at the Rio, and the indefatigable Society of Seven at Bally's.
Thomas gauges the competitive landscape with characteristic aplomb.
"It might be easier to be the only show in town," the 42-year-old Thomas said. "But there's a lot of life here, isn't there?"
During an interview this week at his house in Centennial Hills, which is home to his family (wife Kimberly, 11-year-old daughter Miranda and 6-year-old son Brandon) along with six tigers (including two white tigers named Samson and Starr), Thomas elaborated on his life onstage, his influences and how his act has evolved:
Las Vegas Sun: You were once a competitive ballroom dancer. How does one compete in that forum?
Rick Thomas: You're forced into it as a child (laughs) ... My parents (Rob and Carol) teach dance. They live in Long Beach, Calif., and they have 3,000 students down there, still. I was brought up in the industry. My sister (Tamara) and I started competing when we were 5 and 6 years old. We became the Junior National Ballroom Dancing champions.
Sun: That's a scored event, right? Like gymnastics and figure skating?
RT: Yep, 10 judges around the floor. I think that's probably where I got my training, my personality onstage. People are constantly saying, when I'm performing, that it looks like it's the first time I've performed the show. It's fresh. When I was dancing and competing on the ballroom floor, no matter where you moved or where you looked there was a judge looking at you.
It was tough. As a young child, I grew up in an adult world -- the tuxedos, tails, the ballroom gowns, the chandeliers, where to put your fork when you eat in this elegant situation. And here I am, a little kid and all I want to do is get under the table and do card tricks. So the competition and the dancing, it was awesome, it was wonderful training for me.
Sun: You have been performing for audiences since you were what, 13?
RT: Professionally since age 17, actually. At 13, I was performing and my mom allowed me to charge for shows, and at that point I was getting about $5 a show. And that was tough because I did, like, one show every two weeks. But I guess that was good for a 13-year-old.
Sun: Do you recommend such an early start for someone who wants to be a magician, or who wants to be a performer?
RT: Not too many people start in the business late, like, "Wow! I want to play the piano!" And they're 30 years old. They might have been led to play the piano by their parents and discovered they loved it above and beyond everybody else.
Every one of my friends, when I was growing up in junior high school and high school, because I was so into magic, tried it at some point. They'd say, "That's kind of neat. Let's try that," and do the magic. But I'm the only one who stuck with it. It was something that was in passing for them, but I really had a passion for.
Sun: It seems that, eventually, every kid had one of those little boxed magic sets.
RT: Store-bought sets, yes. Every birthday, every Christmas, all I wanted was magic stuff. My mother and father were frustrated. At one point my mother took away my magic for a couple of weeks when I did something wrong as a child, and to this day she tells people that she should have never done that -- it could have ruined my career.
Sun: How was it that you incorporated tigers into your act?
RT: I started working with tigers 14 years ago. And my reason for doing so was that I had always worked with birds -- I started working with birds when I was 13 or 14 years old -- and I always felt that tigers were just absolutely gorgeous animals. I first started working with them in Asia, when I was on tour. I was performing in China and Japan, and then I was at a show in Guam and was given my first opportunity to bring them into the show, and that was six or seven years before I came to Vegas.
Sun: How did you introduce yourself to this exotic, wild animal?
RT: I remember my first experience. My first tiger I worked with -- I still own this tiger, Zeus, an amazing animal -- was 2 years old when I first met him. I remember the trainers ... one of them stood there, and the cat's on one side of the stage and the trainer's saying, "I don't know how to introduce the two of you."
So he brought Zeus out, and I wasn't scared. But I was overwhelmed. I was speechless. The experience of actually having the cat stand next to you is unexplainable. It's one of the most awesome feelings you'll have in your life.
Sun: What is the most important thing to remember when you're around them?
RT: I think the most important thing to remember with the tigers is ... humans don't know a hundredth of what's going through their heads. We don't think like they do. So, the moment I pull a tiger out (of its cage) and I'm working with the cat, I'm not a magician anymore. I'm a guy who handles tigers. And the macho, "Look how cool I am onstage," attitude goes out the window.
If that's in your head, when you're working with these cats, at that point -- wrong idea.
Sun: The Siegfried & Roy incident (when Roy Horn was seriously injured by a white tiger) showed how dangerous these animals can be, even in the hands of experts.
RT: There are always a few people around you, a few handlers, always there. But it's like anything you deal with in the world. When you go scuba diving, you go with a partner. You don't scuba dive alone. But there are some amazing things that people do that blow my mind, and I would never even attempt to try. But I'll work with my tigers.
Sun: Have you added any new security measures for the Stardust that you didn't have at the Tropicana, pre-Siegfried & Roy incident?
RT: First, as far as the industry goes, we all know that anything like this is very few-and-far-between. When you look at the world in general, and dealing with being human and what we put ourselves through -- whether it's riding horses or racing cars or riding bulls -- whatever it is, we do some pretty crazy things. But in our situation we calculate it as much as we can, like anything else, and we are always looking to make sure things are done right.
It's a difficult subject, because I think it's across the board in anything we do. What do we do to make cars safer? What do we do to make anything in our lives safer?
Sun: So what has changed for the Stardust?
RT: You're going to see, right now, baby tigers. We have one baby tiger and in the next few weeks we'll have a lot of them running around. Tigers grow about a pound a day, for two years, so the first six months is a wonderful time. After that, they are not baby tigers anymore. They become tigers. At 2 years old, they can be 500 pounds, so take advantage of being able to see them when they are babies. The cubs onstage are adorable.
The show itself, the staging, the lighting, the sound, everything is upgraded. I'm thrilled with the stage and it's a gorgeous theater. It's beautiful. The show will play so much differently, just because of the way the theater is and how my show is. We are always adding some new illusions; we're going to surprise you with some new things -- things that have now been added to the show, things that will be added when it opens, that will be added when summer comes around.
Sun: Who have been your influences over the years?
RT: Well, I think because of my being raised in the ballroom-dancing world, I guess I have to say they were the people my parents made me watch on TV, people like Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire. I grew up, also, watching people like Liberace, watching these people -- not just magicians, but entertainers in general -- and watching them and asking myself, "What makes this entertainer great?"
The piano has 88 keys on it and there are a lot of people who can sit down and play the piano. But what made Liberace great? What made these dancers, or anyone who is a star in their business, great? What puts them above someone else? That's what I studied. Not the magic as much as thoroughly entertaining the audience.
For me, it's not just about magic. Anyone can can do a trick, but very few can perform magic.
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