Mad hot ballrooms

Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2006 | 7:27 a.m.

The Golden Nugget showroom added 200 seats during the venue's renovation over the past six months.

"There won't be a bad seat in the house," says Joe Leone, vice president of entertainment for the Nugget.

The 600 seats are wide, comfortable theater chairs arranged in tiers and staggered so fans won't be looking at the back of the head in front of them. The back row is less than 70 feet from the stage.

Leone wouldn't say how much was spent on the renovation.

The showroom, once home to Frank Sinatra, also gets a new stage - wider but not as deep as the old one. "We can fit a 32-piece orchestra on it if we have to," says Ron O'Neal, entertainment director.

The sound system has been upgraded, with the capacity for TV and movie technicians to merely plug into the outlets and start rolling. CDs can be recorded live without disturbing fans.

Sinatra would recognize his old dressing room. "It's been cleaned up but otherwise left untouched," Leone said.

Eventually there will be three anchor shows in the room, and headliners such as Don Rickles, Randy Travis and Tanya Tucker will share the theater with the three anchor shows, including "Simply Ballroom" and "Cover Girl."

- Jerry Fink

All you have to do is turn on the television, and you'll know that ballroom dancing is hot - a fact not lost on Las Vegas promoters.

Last week, "Burn the Floor," which has been touring the world for seven years, began a limited run at the Luxor. It will begin dancing toe-to-toe with a second ballroom dance production: "Simply Ballroom" is set to debut Oct. 7 at the Golden Nugget's renovated showroom.

The dueling dance shows recall the competition a few years back between "Lord of the Dance" at New York-New York and then the Venetian and "Spirit of the Dance" at the Golden Nugget. Both featured Irish folk dancing, although "Spirit" included other forms of dancing as well.

"Simply Ballroom" also will be different from its competition, says Joe Leone, the Nugget's vice president of entertainment.

"They will be compared, and I'm OK with that. Competition has never scared me," Leone says. " 'Spirit of the Dance' outlived 'Lord of the Dance' - but we had to get over the hump with the consumer, and I think this one will as well.

"Some people may think they have to choose between which ballroom show to go to. But at the end of the day if we do our job right and we deliver onstage - which I know we will - they'll make a choice to come see ours because it is different."

John Conway, who produces "Simply Ballroom" in Great Britain, says there's really no comparison between his show and "Burn."

"The shows are radically different," Conway says. "The whole idea of 'Burn the Floor' is to destroy the accepted notion of how ballroom would appear. What I wanted to do with 'Simply Ballroom' was to simply present ballroom dancing.

"Harley (Medcalf, 'Burn the Floor's' producer) is a good chap, but he's the complete opposite. He's saying forget what you think about ballroom, 'We're going to change your conceptions.' We're saying 'Remember everything you know about ballroom, and that's what we're going to show you.' "

"Simply Ballroom" also will explain more about the history of ballroom dancing, Conway says.

"We have a little more background in our show, telling about how the dances originate - like the fox trot began in New York in the '20s. We explain some of these things, building an encyclopedic knowledge, but in an entertaining way."

Leone says five top competitive ballroom dance teams will perform in "Simply Ballroom." "By the end of the show you're going to know these couples."

When the Nugget's showroom closed for a major overhaul last spring, Leone went to London in search of a new show for the new room.

Ultimately, he says he will have three different "anchor" shows each night - at 7, 9 and 11 p.m.

He's still looking for something for the 9 p.m. slot, but he's found the other two. "Simply Ballroom" will be the early show, and a second production by Conway, the adult-oriented "Cover Girl," will fill the late slot.

"I went to London not because there aren't talented people here - I'm not reinventing the wheel - but I wanted a fresh outlook, somebody to look at it from a different way," he says.

Part of the Nugget's challenge is drawing audiences downtown.

"We have got to give people a reason to come see the show," Leone says. "This isn't even about competing. I have got to give somebody a reason to get in a cab, get in a limo or whatever and come down to see it. Even if I do the same thing only better, it doesn't necessarily mean somebody's going to come down here. I've got to give them something they can't get anywhere else."

The late-night show may fill that bill. "Cover Girl" will feature a 3-D cyber girl and guy in an adult film controlled by the audience.

"The 3-D film will be interactive with the audience, and they can make it different every night. A member of the audience will direct it," Conway says. "It will be a spicy adult movie, but different each night - very cutting-edge technology."

But that is only part of the show, which is designed to be as attractive to women as to men.

"It's going to be somewhat like a women's magazine," Conway says. "With something for men and women, a glossy magazine comes to life with a photographer taking pictures of girls in a fashion shoot, in a lingerie shoot.

"The show is quirky and off-beat."

There will be a male and a female singer. And a polka sequence. And topless dancers, though that's not the main attraction.

"It's not topless, in your face. Just sexy," Conway says.

Leone says, "We're not celebrating sex. We're celebrating the sexiness of Las Vegas."

That's something to dance about.