Leila Navidi

Jack Gaughan, musical director of “Phantom: The Las Vegas Spectacular,” says he’s learned through years of experience on the Strip that shows with big names and outstanding music have the best chance to succeed.

By Jerry Fink (contact)

Wed, Oct 22, 2008 (2 a.m.)

“Phantom” musical director Jack Gaughan arrived in Las Vegas at the right time.

He came to town as conductor with a touring company of “Chicago” in 1999 and never left.

Broadway, or at least overtures to Broadway, was beginning to blossom in the desert.

“The whole idea of Broadway West. I don’t know where it started. I think it started in New York because a spate of Broadway shows were coming west,” Gaughan says. “Well, we aren’t Broadway West. What we are is a town that has a lot of entertainment that competes for Broadway shows.

“I think those shows are successful here when they fit a certain demographic — and also have brand recognition, like “Mamma Mia!” with Abba music. ‘Phantom’ of course has its own recognition.”

Many Broadway road shows have passed through Vegas. A few have tried to put down roots, but most died on the vine — “Notre Dame de Paris,” “Hairspray,” “Avenue Q,” “The Producers” and “We Will Rock You.” Steve Wynn says “Spamalot” didn’t fail, but the show hit the road and was replaced by Danny Gans.

Only “Mamma Mia!” and “Phantom: The Las Vegas Spectacular” have had staying power. “Jersey Boys” appears to be doing well at the Palazzo, but it’s too early to make a call on its long-term success.

Gaughan expects that “The Lion King” will be successful when it arrives at Mandalay Bay in May, replacing “Mamma Mia!”

“Again, that’s a big music show with lots of recognition,” Gaughan says. “ ‘Spamalot’ and ‘The Producers’ weren’t such big-name shows. They didn’t have a long track record, like ‘Phantom,’ and so it was harder to sell them. The problem with ‘We Will Rock You’ is they didn’t quite know how to market it. The show was a ‘futuristic musical based on the music of Queen.’ It’s a little difficult to sell that.”

Las Vegas shows also have to market to tourists, many of whom don’t speak English as their first language.

“We get a lot of Asian tourists, and I’m sure they are much more comfortable with a show where language isn’t so important,” Gaughan says. “In ‘The Producers’ or ‘Spamalot’ if you don’t get the joke, it is not going to be as much fun. With ‘Mamma Mia!’ or ‘Phantom’ they can get the story without understanding the subtleties of the language.”

Gaughan has had input on most of the Broadway and Broadway-like shows that have passed through Las Vegas in the past 10 years. In addition to conducting “Phantom,” he runs G&G Theatrical Services, which contracts musicians and runs payroll for several theaters on the Strip. Producers come to him to find the right musicians for their shows.

“I’m not divorced from the local musicians union,” he says. “I work through them also. But the skills to play for some of the Broadway shows are somewhat specialized, especially in woodwind instruments. I know the skill sets of the players. I’ve held a lot of auditions because I don’t know everybody.”

Gaughan, a native of Newport News, Va., began playing piano at age 4. But he was a pre-med student in college before changing to music. He graduated from Ohio University and then studied conducting at the Cleveland Institute of Music.

Then he headed for New York and got lucky.

Gaughan was unloading his piano from a U-Haul. “These two guys ran down the street and asked me if I played piano and I said yes. They had an audition coming up in a few days and asked me to play for them — and that’s how I made my first couple of bucks in New York. Everything fell into place after that. I got some jobs as music director for some shows. They were Broadway-type shows, but not on Broadway.”

He worked steadily, did some touring.

“For a long time I did stuff with a little opera company, a contemporary company that did new pieces. We got a lot of wonderful publicity,” he says. “Beverly Sills would come by and Schuyler Chapin from Metropolitan Opera would come in and they would pluck all kinds of singers from our little production and put them in the New York opera. We turned into a theater organization for those companies, which was quite an accomplishment at the time.”

His first job conducting on Broadway was Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Evita” in 1981. “I did the last couple of years on Broadway.” He was original conductor for Webber’s “Phantom of the Opera” when it opened on Broadway in 1986.

He signed on with “Chicago” because the tour was headed for Tokyo and Moscow. “Two places I would like to have gone.”

But he didn’t get past Vegas.

After “Chicago” closed he worked on “The Main Event,” a short-lived musical about Frank Sinatra. He played keyboards for “Mamma Mia!”

Gaughan was a natural choice to conduct “Phantom,” which opened at the Venetian in 2006 a recently celebrated its 1,000th performance.

“I knew they were going to make some changes to accommodate the Las Vegas production, which made it different from the show that I knew,” he says of the one-act, 90-minute local version. “You’d have to know the original quite well to discern where the cuts were made here because they did them very skillfully. It seems to be seamless and complete the way we do it, which was our goal.”

One noticeable difference is the chandelier scene. On Broadway it crashes down at the end of the first act and the second act begins six months later. “But we don’t have an intermission here so the whole business with the chandelier happens more toward the end of the show, which is a better place if you’re not going to have an intermission,” he says.

The Vegas orchestra is also smaller — 18 compared with 26. “With the technology available, we can make it sound like 40 pieces or more,” he says.

Gaughan has no regrets about leaving the bright lights of the Great White Way for the glitter of the Strip.

“I’m not quite involved yet but I’m aware of some projects being developed for Las Vegas coming down the road that I think will be very interesting — some Broadway-type shows, some new type of shows specifically for Las Vegas,” Gaughan says. “I think a lot of things are coming to town that will be very interesting.”