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While Avenue Q was the first and only show to eschew a national tour and put all its money on Vegas, musicals like Spamalot and Hairspray are excluding or limiting play in competing markets, such as Nevada, California and Arizona. The Vegas focus "has been an awakening for the industry," says Pat Halloran, president of the Independent Presenters Network, a group of 55 theater owners, operators and presenters...
Halloran's group put up $1 million toward Spamalot's Las Vegas run, but part of the deal is that the show will tour elsewhere. "After Avenue Q, we all became a little smarter," Halloran explains. In the best of all worlds, a hot Las Vegas run spills over into good buzz for touring shows. The Abba tribute Mamma Mia!, for example, rakes in the "Money, money, money" and has tripled its investment in three years. Its success feeds audiences elsewhere...
Good buzz wasn't enough for Avenue Q. Producer Kevin McCollum says he believed Wynn's up-front backing would take "much of the risk out of the equation for us." For a regular tour, he would have faced traveling expenses of $50,000 a week. But success is measured differently in Vegas. "Body count is as important or more important than your gross potential," says Michael Gill, general manager of Vegas' Mamma Mia! Word of mouth for the off-kilter show (Avenue Q features a gaggle of foulmouthed puppets) wasn't enough to fill its 1,200-seat venue...
Avenue Q, for its part, is hoping for a second chance. Its producers sent "kiss and make up" cards to tour presenters--they'll be hitting the road after...
...Right now there's so much happening in the Middle East that it's top of mind, it's not by accident," says Paris-based shoe designer Christian Louboutin, who recently returned from a tour of Riyadh and Dubai. Miuccia Prada, who showed her Miu Miu collection in Paris, at first resisted pegging her work this season as political. But she admitted that, for the first time, she felt the urge to "take more consciousness and more power for women." Her clothes--black anoraks and heavy shoes--reminded her of the more reactive '60s and '70s, she said...