VINTAGE VEGAS:

Photos: Final bow for ‘Folies Bergere’

Leila Navidi

Dancer Michelline Padilla waits for her cue at Tropicana’s Tiffany Theatre. “Les Folies Bergere” was first staged in Las Vegas in 1959. As of Saturday night, the show will have been performed 29,000 times.

By Leila Navidi (contact)

Friday, March 27, 2009 | 2 a.m.

"Folies Bergere" closes the curtain

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"Les Folies Bergere"

It’s 6:15 Monday night backstage at the Tropicana’s Tiffany Theatre — the beginning of the final “Les Folies Bergere” workweek.

No one is here. The rooms are filled with rows of mannequin heads topped with ornate headdresses, racks of sequined costumes and jars of rhinestones.

Almost 50 years have passed since “Folies Bergere” staged its first performance at the Tropicana. Photo collages in the hallways backstage tell the story of everything that’s happened in between. In black-and-white, faded sepia and bright color, performers in ornate plumage are arm in arm, smiling widely for the camera, frozen in time.

At 6:45 the performers begin to trickle in. Showgirls enter the dressing room and begin applying makeup and gluing eyelashes. Showgirl Kim Denmark sits down at her mirrored station and drops her bags on the floor, looking at herself in the mirror.

She sighs. “It’s going to be a hard week. I can already tell.”

“Folies Bergere” will stage its last performance at the Tropicana on Saturday night.

Discussion: 2 comments so far…

By Guy_Burgess03

3/27/09 at 6:09 a.m.

Suggest removal

It was time for the follies to go. They took Paris out of a parisian show.
By manfromuncle1

3/28/09 at 1:06 a.m.

Suggest removal

Is it a matter of changing tastes, or changing economics? The last two shows I saw in Vegas were "Bite" and "Scarlett Princess of Magic". I enjoyed both immensely, but both shows were smaller budget productions involving no more than a dozen female dancers (and probably taped music). "Midnight Fantasy" at the Luxor wasn't a very big production either. I remember the fiasco a while back involving Robert Goulet, who couldn't afford to pay the rent on the venue at the Venetian, causing his show to close. Apparently it's not easy to put on a profitable show in Vegas--especially now.