ent001673-023

This item has not been digitized in its entirety. The original item is available for research and handling at the UNLV University Libraries. Additional digitization is available upon request. Please contact Special Collections to request additional digitization or with any questions regarding access at special.collections@unlv.edu. production numbers encompass 25 scenes .in four acts. The sets are gargantuan. The stage is one of the largest and most elaborate in town, with 15 elevators, with transoms that descend from the ceiling, and a mechanized floor that opens like a chasm over the middle of the stage, The newcomers have been rehearsing in the day as well, broken up into small groups supervised by their line captains. For the existing cast members, however, the rehearsals have meant five-hour nights. For the showgirls, it?╟╓s been more like six hours, with mandatory 20-minute warm-ups beginning at 7 p.m., a show at 8 that lasts an hour and 41 minutes, then the rehearsals, which often extend until well past midnight. And these will be followed in the weeks ahead by regularly scheduled ?╟úclean-up?╟Ñ rehearsals to correct the mistakes that invariably occur along the way, To question the necessity of all this brings a look of mild amazement to Fluffs face. ?╟úBecause I want things to be perfect!?╟Ñ she exclaims. For the cast it?╟╓s a continual test of their stamina and their desire. Following a scene called ?╟úCelestial Nights?╟Ñ comes the finale?╟÷?╟úThe Jubilee! Walk?╟Ñ?╟÷which in the show features a huge, assemblage of exposed young mammaries descending the grand staircase in elaborate costumes and headdresses ??0K, cut, cut!?╟Ñ Fluff calls out. ?╟úLet?╟╓s do the Gershwin again. A few girls, you?╟╓re hurrying down the stairs on the wrong feet. Kids, listen to me! We?╟╓re taking the elevators down. Clear the stage unless you have to be there.?╟Ñ The stage floor parts and the staircase drops down slowly and disappears into the bowels of the theater, leaving a great hole in the middle of the stage just behind the dancers. They run through the Gershwin medley again. Fluff sits with her chin resting on her fingers, taking in everything right up to the very last note. w'All right, kids, pretty good! OK, strike the set! We?╟╓ll take a 10-minute break!'?½ ack in December, in anticipation of a new seven-month contract, Jubilee! held its customary re-audition of the entire cast, although only the 14 vacancies needed to be filled. ?√ß?╟úPeople get bored with what they?╟╓re doing night after night,?╟Ñ Fluff explains, ?╟úand some people leave us, and some people I have to let go. Not very often... but it keeps up a good levebof energy|||i //^Understandably, if every seven months you might have to compete for your job again. With 94 dancers and singers, Jubilee! is by far the largest revue on the Las Vegas Strip. Thirty of the dancers work topless?╟÷?╟únudes,?╟Ñ as they?╟╓re known in the vernacular. None are older than 35- They?╟╓re divided for symmetry?╟╓s sake into ?╟útall?╟Ñ and ?╟úshort?╟Ñ groups of 15 each, the shortest being 5 feet 8 inches?╟÷the minimum height requirement?╟÷the tallest about 6 feet. Folies Bergere, the Strip?╟╓s longest-running revue (it opened at the Tropicana in niiw wmiiiwii'i ^M 1959), has a cast of 51. Twelve are nudes and are still referred to as Les Mannequins?╟÷as the music halls of Montmartre first conceived the role nearly a century ago?╟÷ as the living image of feminine perfection. The shows have grown more elaborate over the years and, consequently, more expensive?╟÷which would indicate that to the bottom-line mentality of modern-day corporate Vegas, despite all the competing high-tech spectaculars that have come along in recent years, the traditional revues are still packing them in and still making money. The casts have multiplied tremendously, both in numbers and in skill. More often than not, they?╟╓re bringing with them a grounding in ballet, modem dance* or both. Susan Tobey, a showgirl for 17 years and now box office manager at the Tropi-cana?╟╓s Tiffany Theater, remembers when it wasn?╟╓t always that way. ?╟úWhen I started, if you could count to eight and move gracefully you could get in a show. I remember, looking back, we would have a showgirl audition and what would show up would be?╟÷Oh, my God, you know?╟÷is that what we have to choose from? And now there are so many more classically trained tall women. You can have the best of the best up on stage who know how to dance.?╟Ñ* ?╟úTraining today is better,?╟Ñ says Fluff. ?╟úWhen I was growing up there were very few ballet schools, in comparison to what there are now. We were more geared to the Hollywood musical type of thing, more tap, acrobatic, all the ethnic dances.?╟Ñ She goes so far as to assert that the term ?╟úshowgirl?╟Ñ in the traditional sense?╟÷as an essentially static member of a static pageantry designed to celebrate the female form?╟÷no longer is sufficient to describe the performers in today?╟╓s revues. ?╟úIn \Jubilee!\ every girl is a dancer,?╟Ñ she says. ?╟úThere are some who work topless and some who work covered, but they all have to be trained dancers.?╟Ñ On stage and off, too. During a show, costume changes are something of a performance art in themselves, with the quickest accomplished in about 30 seconds. The smooth flow of traffic backstage requires some slick choreography of its own. ?╟úYou have to lay out all your costumes for the next number, have your shoes ready, your wig, everything,?╟Ñ says Carey Hem, a ?╟úshort nude?╟Ñ who has been with the show three years. ?╟úAnd then you have a dresser that comes and zips everything up and helps you get into it. Some people?╟╓s changes are so fast they don?╟╓t even come down into the dressing room. They call them quick change rooms, right on the side of the stage. They just go in there.?╟Ñ, At Jubilee?s current run of eight performances a week, by week?╟╓s end, Carey and the other girls will have climbed 2,000 stairs from the stage to their basement dressing rooms and will have accomplished about 80 costume changes each, the heaviest costume weighing a daunting 35 pounds. For all this, the starting pay is about $550 a week before taxes for the covered dancers, who live at the bottom of the salary chain in every revue, although their routines generally are more rigorous. The nudes are paid a premium above that?╟÷ they start at about $620, which is far less than the principal dancers and singers, whose salaries are negotiated individually and in some cases exceed ||000 a week. Jubilee?s contract provides everyone with three sick days and three paid vacation days. Everyone receives the same health benefits as the rest of the hotel staff. As with salary, a similar hierarchy extends to accommodations. The principals, in pairs, share more intimate dressing rooms, each with their own makeup station. The tall nudes, short nudes and covered dancers are segregated into larger, separate rooms, also with individual makeup stations. The compensation is fairly standard throughout town, although there are exceptions. One of the most popular revues, the Riviera?╟╓s Crazy Girls, works under a three-month contract. The cast is provided with no health insurance. The Crazy Girls also receive no sick pay. ?╟úBut you?╟╓d find most dancers know that you gotta go on,?╟Ñ says Karen Raider, company manager and the cast?╟╓s senior dancer. ?╟úIt doesn?╟╓t matter. Unless you?╟╓re really, deathly ill, you go on. You just get through the night and you?╟╓re done. It?╟╓s not like you?╟╓re going to an eight-hour job. If you can get through a couple of shows and you can lie down between shows, you just do it.?╟Ñ/ No one?╟╓s complaining?╟÷certainly not the newcomers, like JubileeFs Sabina Zenglein, just up from San Diego and all of 19 years old. ijjfjjcan?╟╓t explain it. It?╟╓s just a great, great feeling. It?╟╓s my first professional job, and I?╟╓m having so much fun with it. Like, I can?╟╓t believe it?╟╓s a job, because I?╟╓d do it for free. I love it.?╟Ñ She?╟╓s unabashedly enamored of the whole image. ?╟úClassy,?╟Ñ she 9$emg a jhou ffitf, big cotitunea, t 6 0 A11L ?√ß 9 8