The Strip: A surge in creativity appears imminent

OUTPUT

Las Vegas could be on the verge of an artistic revolution

Like every performer in town where the vacuum would suck you, who has been called back to because more and more bad news action, Petra Massey sounds kept happening and more friends overjoyed to return to her and family were affected. It was this stage in Atomic Saloon Show. “I felt global thing, and yet these beautiful like a bottle being uncorked,” the positives happened as well, where British-born comedian says of people really came together.” reopening May 5. “The rush The local performing arts I got after 13 months of not community absolutely did doing any shows or any kind that, supporting each other of performance really hit me. in meaningful ways big and It was amazing.” small. There were benefit

The hit Spiegelworld show at events being livestreamed the Grand Canal Shoppes at Ve- and virtual connections pronetian originally launched just moting self-care and home a few months before the pan- exercise routines. Less visible demic shut down the Strip, and THE was a forced but obvious many of its cast and crew were INCIDENTAL undercurrent of individual new to Las Vegas. Massey, on TOURIST creativity and artistic exploher second tour of Vegas duty BY BROCK RADKE ration. (her comedy troupe Spymon- As the entertainers of Las key served in the opening cast Vegas continued to stay home of Cirque du Soleil’s Zumanity and away from the live stage, in 2003), began volunteering at her scratching out a way to keep moving son’s school and ended up becoming forward, new takes on old ideas buban outreach facilitator and games bled up. Concepts simmered. Firstteacher for five months, “just for my time discussions and collaborations sanity and to help them out,” she says. were sparked. New work began.

“It was such shaky ground. You Massey says the landscape has didn’t know where you could walk or changed quite a bit since her first ar-

rival 18 years ago. On the Strip, Zumanity was laying the groundwork for the edgier Spiegelworld-style shows of today, prepping Las Vegas audiences for a different kind of fun. And the creative community has grown, spread out and diversified since then, too.

“I suppose all sorts of shows kind of paved the way very slowly for that step to happen,” she says. “Another show that [like Zumanity] is not on anymore but also trailblazing was The Miss Behave Gameshow [at Bally’s]—very cultish and so great—and I hope it might come back again. What happens with shows like this— and like Hot Trash, which is from another performer from Spiegelworld, Grace Lusk—is they are bringing a whole different kind of artist to Vegas. It’s opening up something very interesting from people who have a different creative bent, sort of producer-creators.

“In that way, Vegas is growing in an interesting and quite remarkable way, and I’m very excited to be here right now.”

Lusk, now performing in Absinthe at Caesars Palace, launched the Vaudeville-inspired peepshow Hot Trash with Troy Heard at his Majestic Repertory Theatre Downtown last month and extended it through June after a strong response. Similarly, a trio of tight-knit creatives from the cast and crew of Zumanity assembled the charming cabaret Apéro Show, now playing at Town Square’s Baobab Stage.

Strip performers have always dabbled here and there, popping up to sing a song at a local lounge or working on more significant side projects, striving to do something other than what they do five nights a week. But the unprecedented downtime over the past year accelerated what feels like a budding movement, putting motion behind ideas and turning side projects into the main gig.

“We had to put the brakes on everything, but creativity never stops,” says Cheryl Daro, an actor, director and producer. “Instead of performing someone else’s work, all of a sudden you have this space to create your own. And I think there’s going to an explosion in Las Vegas from this community, because all of these artists are going to be able to put these ideas into play.”

Daro has performed in shows on the Strip and in theatrical productions in New York and LA, but she might be best known here as the behind-the-scenes, binding force of Mondays Dark, hosted by her husband Mark Shunock, and their versatile off-Strip entertainment venue, the Space. (Disclosure: I’m a volunteer board member of the Mondays Dark nonprofit organization.) When they landed in Las Vegas more than eight years ago—around the time the Smith Center opened and helped catapult the cultural arts scene—Daro says it was easy to recognize how many talented performers and artists were here and connected, but there weren’t enough venues and organizations to support independent efforts.

“What I noticed was a disconnect in terms of people who could produce the content and venues that could handle a show. Specifically with theater, there was no access. You were doing community theater, something non-union or you were on the Strip,” she says. “I think now there’s a different mentality on the producer side, where you’re seeing smaller companies can offer equity contracts for things like that, and it’s building a middle ground from the community level up to the Strip.”

More local artists and producers cultivating new works will create the need for those venues, and vice versa. The Vegas Room, a true listening space that offers guests dinner and a show and artists a place to create and perform their own material, opened during the pandemic in the Commercial Center. Daro will sing and tell stories there on June 24 and 25.

The gears of this fascinating creative machine started turning long before the pandemic, but the pause forced those individual parts to consider themselves in a different way, and maybe more importantly, to envision a more efficient and beautiful path for collaborating with others.

“I’m hoping to see locals take notice of the artists that are here and the way they’re getting together, but also, on a national level, I hope that we get recognized for our community and not just for being performers in shows [on the Strip],” Daro says. “We are a very unique group of people, and there’s a really deep heart for the arts here. I’m hoping we get to see some really exciting pieces come out of this time, things that are really unique to this city.”

THE STRIP

NOISE

Vegas rapper DougieTheDon reconnects with his father through song

BY LESLIE VENTURA

DougieTheDon’s debut solo record, This One’s on You, begins with a voicemail from his father.

“Doug Jr., this is your dad,” the deep and pleasant voice bellows. “I haven’t heard from you, hope all is well.” Lately, Doug Sr. mentions, he and his son have been distant. They’ve had their differences, but he believes things will one day realign. “Just called to say ‘I love you.’ Hope to hear from you soon,” the dad says before the sounds of piano keys take over.

“I’ve been making music since I was 13,” says the son, 33-yearold Douglas Sorro, who grew up performing in a hip-hop group but eventually got into basketball and stopped rapping.

Later, he switched gears again to become a father himself. It wasn’t until COVID-19 hit that he found the time to reignite his childhood passion—and to connect with his father through song. “Things just started happening out of nowhere,” Sorro says.

The rapper and singer attributes his newfound success to the camaraderie he has found in Las Vegas since relocating here from LA in 2009. Though Sorro didn’t get involved in the music scene right away, he found kinship in the community. It’s partly why the importance of his family is a theme of This One’s on You.

“I’m a little bit older. I can’t sit here and talk about stuff I don’t live [through]. I don’t talk about guns and killing people, I talk about my actual life and I have fun with it,” Sorro says. “Everything I put on there is the truth, and whether it embarrasses me or not, I want to be transparent.

Being homeless, ending up in jail, visiting his dad in the hospital following Doug Sr.’s open heart surgery are all topics on the record, and “those are all things that really happened,” he says.

“I was tired/I was lonely/I was broken inside/But instead of begging for change/I was begging to die,” Dougie raps on “Owe It All to You.”

“Me and my father, we’re extremely stubborn,” Sorro says. “We don’t agree on a lot of things … but my dad usually is the one who will always reach out and apologize.”

That’s where the voicemail comes in. “My dad’s not getting younger, and tomorrow’s not promised, so I wanted to make sure he could see something while he was still standing, and show how much I appreciate everything he did for me and my brother.”

Originally, This One’s on You sounded entirely different. He says the cover photo—of baby Dougie cradled in his father’s arms—is just about the only thing remaining from that earlier version. “I was letting my father listen to the original album and he liked it, but as I was playing it, I was like, ‘This album doesn’t match my dad in any way.’ So I got rid of those songs and I [re-] made the album within two weeks,” Sorro says.

The final track, “Dad,” brings the LP full circle, beginning with a dial tone and a message to Sorro’s father. “What would I do without you, Pops?/Truth be told/I don’t know if I’m’a grow old/But if the Lord take me here today/Just know I’m a part of your soul,” Sorro raps over a melancholy beat, while his daughter echoes, “Grandpa, I love you.”

“He’s one of my biggest supporters,” Sorro says. “It’s wild, because he always critiques something. … But when he heard this, he had no complaints.”

DOUGIE THE DON

linktr.ee/dougiethedon