The Girl With Kaleidoscope Eyes

Every time Cirque du Soleil unveils a new production, I say to myself, “Okay, we can let this one pass. Surely there can't be anything new and groundbreaking to cover this time around.” And every time, they make a liar out of me.

Only a few short months after we covered their new arena touring production, Delirium, Cirque has already topped itself with its much anticipated pairing with the Beatles' Apple Corp., Love, which opened recently at the Mirage in, where else, Las Vegas. Ellen Lampert-Gréaux takes you behind the scenes of this latest offering, which is the first Cirque show not to feature live music but instead offers, obviously enough, re-mastered works from the Beatles catalog. With five shows now in Vegas, one in Orlando, countless touring productions, and plans for permanent productions around the globe, Cirque shows no signs of slowing down.

Perhaps the only thing more indefatigable than the Cirque juggernaut is La Gréaux herself. As many of you know, Ellen has been covering the entertainment technology industry for over two decades, before moving lights, media servers, and digital consoles, back when Cirque was nothing more than a troupe of struggling performers on the streets of Montreal. She's covered it all, and she's long been a champion of the work of Cirque, going all the way back to their first production, La Nouvelle Experience.

And as a flower child of the 60s, she's also well immersed in the music of the Beatles. When she emailed her nearly 4,000 word opus on Love (from the confines of her home in St. Barts — yeah, I know…must be nice — she added the following note: “I closed myself in my office with Beatles music blaring, reliving my own drug-induced 60s, in order to write these mere 4,000 words…the girl with kaleidoscope eyes…I'm punch drunk!”

Those of you who know Ellen — and I'm beginning to believe that, given the size of her Rolodex, if you haven't met yet, you eventually will — know that she doesn't ingest anything stronger than sparkling water (and once in a blue moon, the occasional Kahlua and cream), so the image of her hunkered down at her computer, jamming on 60s tunes, and having flashbacks is a sight too delicious to ignore. Here's hoping her story, and the rest of this heavily theatre-filled issue, gets you equally giddy.