Get the Strip without the city

By Joe Brown

Thursday, April 24, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Chris Morris

COURTESY OF SYMPHONIC POPS CONSORTIUM

The Symphonic Pops Consortium creates theatrical pops programs that cities can buy and produce with their own orchestras. The package saves orchestras money and helps to build symphony audiences.

COURTESY OF SYMPHONIC POPS CONSORTIUM

A Frank Sinatra impersonator is included in the Las Vegas entertainment package, as are costumes for two to six showgirls.

COURTESY OF SYMPHONIC POPS CONSORTIUM

A Liberace impersonator is included in the Las Vegas entertainment package, as are costumes for two to six showgirls.

Feeling kind of indisposed, Indianapolis? Got the blahs, Baltimore? Bored, Buffalo?

What if you could turn your town into Fabulous Las Vegas, for one night only?

Across the country, regional orchestras are drawing big crowds by presenting what amounts to Vegas in a can. Just add an orchestra (and sprinkle with showgirls).

Created with the help and blessing of the Liberace Museum, “Pops Goes Vegas!” is a recipe for a Vegas-themed night at the symphony. It includes two hours of original arrangements and orchestrations, including an overture, “Liberace plays ‘Chopsticks,’ ” “Luck Be a Lady,” “Big Spender,” “If He Walked into My Life,” “My Way”/”I Gotta Be Me” and the big finale, “Cher Goes Patriotic!”

You also get costumes, decor, stage layout and a cast, including Liberace tribute artist Martin Preston, Brian Duprey, who does a mean Frank Sinatra, and, if he is available, conductor Jack Everly.

The Vegas idea struck its producer, Ty Johnson, during a first-time business trip. “I stayed at the Bellagio for four days, and I kind of fell in love with the city,” he says. “You’ve got legendary music, legendary performers, this whole feel of fun and glitter and glamour. And behind all that we can instill some pretty fantastic musical values.”

• • •

“Pops Goes Vegas!” is catching on city by city — the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra scored big with it last month, Pittsburgh will present it in May, Ottawa, Canada, in June, then Fort Worth, Texas, Oklahoma City, Detroit ...

Top ticket price for a night in Vegas by way of Baltimore: $57.

The plug-and-play packaged “product” was developed by the Symphonic Pops Consortium, a division of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, which creates theatrical pops programs and makes them available for other orchestras as a sort of concert kit.

“Orchestras are always looking for a popular product in their pop series,” says Johnson, the consortium’s executive producer. “Everyone and their brother does a Broadway night, everyone does a tribute to the movies. And there are great stars out there who, thank goodness, are still performing and touring. But you don’t want your entire series to be stars. Because it is about the orchestra, and you don’t want to make the orchestra a backing band.”

Johnson tested the waters for the concert-kit concept with a Celtic-themed program, complete with Irish dancers, a fiddler and an actor reading letters from home.

“It was very theatrical yet kept the orchestra at the center of the performance,” Johnson says. “There had never been anything like it out there in the symphonic world, and it got snapped up; people loved it.”

Now the consortium’s inventory includes “The Beat Goes On! The Music of the Baby Boomers,” “Pops Goes British” and “That ’70s Showcase: Disco Days and Boogie Nights.”

• • •

From the “Pops Goes Vegas!” rider, a list of items to be provided by the local producing orchestra:

Local Showgirls: 2-6 (must be an even number) local women

• Height: Between 5-foot-8 and 6-foot

• Dress Size: 2, 4, 6 or 8

• At least three years dance training

• Must move and dance comfortably in 3- or 4-inch heels

• Must be comfortable wearing a full headdress and very revealing (yet tasteful) gowns/costumes

• And as fabulous as many drag queens would be, all showgirls need to be women

• • •

“All the orchestras have to provide is the musicians, the rehearsal services and the audience,” Johnson says. “And we can put on a show.”

This approach saves orchestras a bundle while maximizing audience appeal. “Pops Goes Vegas!” cost the consortium approximately $108,000 to conceive, create and produce; presenting orchestras pay a fraction of that to produce it.

Novelty, cost-effectiveness and guaranteed box office aside, the point is to present a memorable musical experience.

“When you think of some of the classic songs associated with Vegas or Vegas performers, they might not have been played by symphony orchestras, but you can bet they were played by orchestras of 25, 35, 45 players,” Johnson says. “All those charts had string sections. And that’s how we hear them in our heads. Nowadays we’re lucky if we get a band of 12 — with two keyboards covering a string section.”

It’s up to the orchestras to decide how far they want to go with the theme. Baltimore and Indianapolis both hired event-planning companies to come in and set up casinos in their lobbies, complete with showgirls and showboys. And they kept the bars and casinos open for an hour after the concert.

• • •

The consortium also has one costume for a showboy, which is a nice balance and fun. Requirements:

• Height: 5-foot-11 to 6-foot-3

• Waist no bigger than 33 inches

• Should be absolutely built, with six-pack abs, because the costume is shirtless.

• • •

“In so many ways (consortium members) are using Liberace’s model,” says the Liberace Museum’s executive director, Darin Hollingsworth, who consulted with Johnson on “Pops Goes Vegas!” before endorsing it. “He brought classics to the common man. And the pops trend around the country is working to build symphony audiences in part with pops programming.”

With his synthetic Vegas cleaning up on the road, Johnson and his creative team are scheduling meetings to come up with more can’t-miss concert concepts.

“We’re going back to Vegas this summer, because everybody had such a good time,” he says. “They were like, ‘Can we not meet in New York or wherever? Can we meet in Vegas?’ ”