From Criss Angel to Gwen Stefani and Def Leppard to Christina Aguilera, the Planet Hollywood resort boasts a wild array of headlining superstars. This week, an unlikely stage star joins the group, at least for one night.
Ageless actor Rob Lowe brings his “Stories I Only Tell My Friends” tour to the center Strip resort Saturday night, a one-man show based on his two best-selling memoirs that detail his long Hollywood career and some of the behind-the-scenes moments from familiar movies and TV shows like “The Outsiders,” “St. Elmo’s Fire,” “West Wing” and “Parks and Recreation.”
“What’s attractive about it is that this show is sort of designed for the Vegas clientele in that it plays to people from all over the country,” says the 55-year-old star. “It’s not really an inside-baseball show, it’s meant for regular people who maybe don’t have as much access to knowing the intricacies of being in showbiz. And Vegas is a big deal for me because I’ve seen so many amazing performers over the years in Vegas, and to take my own little crack on the Strip is a challenge I’ve always wanted.”
At least two of Lowe’s past projects have been focused on Las Vegas: He starred in the TV series “Dr. Vegas” from 2004 to 2006 and played a supporting role in the HBO Liberace biopic “Behind the Candelabra” in 2013.
“That’s one of my favorite things I’ve ever been apart of,” he says of the Liberace movie. “That’s one I hope every fan of mine gets a chance to see if they haven’t.”
Lowe is recognizable from so many big- and small-screen projects that it can be challenging to choose which showbiz stories to share during his show, but it’s a dilemma he enjoys.
“The show is really in lieu of doing a third book. It’s the same spirit and has the same sort of breeziness [as the books] but I would say with each show I do, it’s becoming more of its own standalone experience,” he says. “That’s the fun of it is carving out what goes in the show and it’s a little like being a musician. How many Top 40 hits do you want? Do you open with a deep cut or with a hit? What do you do for the encore?”
Lowe is as busy as ever these days, hosting and producing the successful new game show “Mental Samurai,” shooting a Netflix movie in Africa and prepping new TV drama series “Wild Bill,” which has been shooting in London. The hectic schedule has made it difficult to lock down tour dates for the stage show, which continues to Philadelphia, Nashville and other cities in May, but he relishes the unique opportunity to create and perform his own live production.
“It’s so different. It’s a muscle you can only use when you’re using it and you’ve gotta be onstage to use it,” Lowe says. “I’m always envious of my friends like Ricky Gervais or Aziz Ansari or Ellen Degeneres who can go onstage by themselves for 90 minutes and really give people their money’s worth, and I wanted to see if I could do it and always thought maybe I had a show in me. And I did one and it turned into this big tour. It’s important to keep finding things that are new to me, where I’m learning and wide-eyed and getting that fresh adrenaline pumping.”
“Rob Lowe: Stories I Only Tell My Friends” will be presented at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 13 at the Criss Angel Theater at Planet Hollywood (3667 Las Vegas Blvd. South, 866-919-7472) and more information can be found at caesars.com.