&nbspNew Day Dawns


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Creating Gigantic Images
Working Las Vegas
Survival in Glitz City

Creativity, Technology, Stagecraft Allow Celine Dion’s Las Vegas Show to Open New Chapter in Extravaganza Genre


The 171,235-square-foot Colosseum houses Celine Dion’s new Las Vegas production “A New Day.” The building’s design was guided by the performer’s wish to feel close to her audiences.

After years of careful planning, building, and rehearsing, Celine Dion finally made her much anticipated Las Vegas debut in March in a new $95 million dollar theater custom built for her by Park Place Entertainment, owner of Caesars Palace. For the next three years, the 4,000-seat, state-of-the-art Colosseum Theater, built adjacent to the Caesars hotel and casino, will be the home for Dion's show, “A New Day,” an extravagant production that combines Dion's music with the over-the-top production talents of Franco Dragone, the Belgian director who built his reputation as the creative force behind the Cirque du Soleil shows, “O” and “Mystere.”

As a result of all the resources allocated to bringing “A New Day” to Las Vegas, the show generated much attention during its design and production process, long before the debut, starting back in 1999 and culminating early this year. By opening night, expectations had reached astronomical heights, and media critics were out in force, eager to render judgment.

While critical opinions about the show have varied widely in the last few months, there is no denying that audiences are packing the state-of-the-art Colosseum each week to see the show, which is filled with Dragone's signature spectacular stage effects, aerial work, a massive LED screen, computer animation, expert choreography, singers, dancers, musicians, and much more.

During Dion's “I'm Alive” number, for instance, the steeply raked stage is transformed into a colorful nighttime replica of Times Square, thanks largely to vividly bright animation and video work, displayed on the gigantic (110'×34') Mitsubishi Electric Diamond Vision LED screen that forms the stage backdrop. The screen is liberally used, often substituting for set pieces, and Mitsubishi officials believe it to be the largest indoor LED screen in North America, one of the largest in the world, and probably the first LED screen ever so thoroughly incorporated into a theatrical presentation.


Slow aerial movements add an extra dimension to Celine Dion’s "A New Day."

During the haunting strains of Dion's cover of “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” the show also features Dion and several dancers floating gracefully four stories above the stage in a dreamlike aerial ballet, while the LED screen shows an animated series of gold picture frames that give the illusion of stretching to infinity, greatly enhancing the surrealistic mood of the moment.

Such staging complexities are why the production is being promoted as “a unique spectacle of song, theater, dance, and state-of-the-art technology.” Indeed, the use of the latest staging, light, video, and audio tools is central to the show's success.

Setting the Stage

The setting for the show is an immense 22,450-square-foot stage housed in a 171,235-square-foot round building, designed to resemble an ancient Roman colosseum.

“The design was guided by Celine's wish to be as close to her public as possible and Franco's wish that the show have the vastest visual impact possible in order to totally immerse the audience within the action on the stage,” explains Patrick Bergé, president of Scéno Plus, the Montreal company that designed the facility.

To meet Dion's desires, although the stage sports a 120'× 44' proscenium arch, one of the largest in the world, no seat in the house is more than 120ft. away from center stage.

Another key feature of the stage is its raked floor. “It is like traditional Greek theater, where the stage slopes downward from back to front,” says Rick Mooney, technical director of the show. “It's designed to create intimacy by forcing the show to be more a part of the audience,” he says, crediting Michel Crête, the show's scenic designer, with designing the stage.

In addition, the raked stage perfectly compliments the other major scenic element of the show: the gigantic Diamond Vision LED screen. The high-resolution screen — built by Mitsubishi at a cost of $6 million for the theater — curves along the entire back wall of the stage. Its design includes a special door at the bottom of the screen for Dion and other performers to enter and exit through the screen at the rear of the stage.


No seat in the house at the Colosseum is more than 120ft. away from center stage.

The screen uses six Digital Screen Controllers (DSC) networked together, each with the ability to accept three separate feeds directly into the controller, allowing multiple content to be displayed simultaneously. Because each controller can handle 1080i content via an SDI input, the screen is able to display true HDTV resolution content, including IMAG shots of both performers and audience captured by both fixed and moving Sony high-definition cameras during the show. And with its 8mm dot pitch, the screen is able to display imagery that, even at that gigantic size, is remarkably smooth.

“The LED screen becomes a morphing, moving background for the show's various modes and scenes that are suggested by Celine's music,” Mooney explains. “The whole concept of the show is that we are taking her music and putting it into various contexts. But rather than having to bring in 40 different backdrops, the screen can become that backdrop. Moreover, it can be continually evolving. During the course of a single song, for instance, you can have a sunrise turn into a night scene.”

The screen actually does more than create a versatile backdrop. It also gives the stage an incredible sense of three-dimensional depth. For example, says Mooney, for the opening sequence, the screen displays a long staircase that seems to stretch far in the distance, and slowly walking down the staircase is the tiny figure of Celine Dion, seemingly miles away. By the time she reaches the bottom of the stairs, the real Dion has slipped unnoticed out of the door built into the center of the screen. Thus, as if by magic, the virtual Dion is suddenly transformed into the real Dion standing before the audience.

Helping to create such illusions are two Digital Projection Lightning 28sx projectors that are suspended above the LED screen and project downward onto the raked floor. When the imagery displayed by those projectors is coordinated with the imagery projected onto the LED screen, the result is a giant moving tableau that is continuous from floor to wall. At times, the combined video displays, along with masterful use of lights, flying scenery, and fog effects, give the stage a unique sense of depth.

Video and Light

The crisp visuals shown on the LED screen consist of a blending of live video and animated material: high-resolution computer graphics created by Cine-FX of Belgium (see sidebar this page), combined with HD video imagery captured by Sony HDC-950 high-definition, multi-format, multi-frame rate, portable studio cameras. One Sony HD camera is mounted on the first mezzanine balcony rail, and the second has a permanent mount in the downstage left band pit but goes handheld for one number. A third HD camera, used for the audience shots for the show opening, was installed above the LED screen. It is an Ikegami HDL40 with a AMX/PANJA remote control (PTZ) and is controlled from the switcher.

The IMAG lets fans see Dion and her cast up close during much of the show, but it is also used artistically. “There is a lot more art involved in the use of the IMAG imagery — a lot more creation of an emotional context than just documenting where the pop star is and what she's doing,” Mooney says.

During the Times Square dance number, Dion's image is embedded into one of the Times Square digital billboards in the background scene. In another sequence, during her performance of “I'm In Love,” a highly visual number that features a colorful aerial parade of gigantic saxophones, guitars, drums, and other musical instruments drifting high above Dion and her dancers, the LED screen flashes through a sequence of artfully presented, black-and-white, still frame IMAG shots of the audience.


During Dion's "I’m Alive" performance, the Colosseum stage resembles Times Square, complete with LED screens.

Behind the scenes, other Sony technology is used as the foundation of the video display infrastructure for the show. The production relies on Sony's MVS-8000 switcher to handle the live switching of the HD camera footage and all the pre-produced CG graphics and video. That material is then delivered via a V1-UHD video server, two Sony HDW-2000 HDCAM VTRs, and a Sony MAV-777 video server. Backstage in the control room, the show's technical staff relies on a pair of 50in. Sony PFM-50C1 PlasmaPro flat panel plasma displays to preview and monitor the onscreen visuals.

This extensive, live use of high-definition imagery points to an emerging market for such tools, which are far better known in recent years for their television and feature film broadcast potential.

“Sony's high-definition production equipment delivers a striking realism that allows Celine Dion to connect with her audience, and at the same time, take her live performance to another level,” says Rich Stout, video director for “A New Day.” “At the Colosseum, the HD technology is an essential part of the artist's palette for painting a unique and powerful visual experience.”

“It's a wonderful example of the type of event for which HD was created,” adds Larry Thorpe, Sony's senior VP of content creation systems. “The showcase of her talent, combined with high-definition video technology, represents the pinnacle of live HD production.”

While the video displays are clearly the technological stars of the show, they receive considerable help from impressive stable of some 200 moving lights that, Mooney says, consist of “a cacophony of Vari-Lites, Clay Pakys, and Syncrolites. We have eight 3K Syncrolites that run across the top of the LED screen. They pretty much serve as a backlight. We also have four 7K Syncrolites that are used for various special effects purposes. I'm pretty sure they are the largest moving lights available.”

According to Mooney, 200 moving lights would seem like an impressive inventory, if you were working with a normal stage that was 48ft. deep and 60ft. wide. But, “we are twice that wide and twice that deep,” he says. “So it really takes four times the number of lights just to paint the stage with the same kind of density.”

To control the lights, the show relies on Yves Aucoin to program and control two Compulite Sabre consoles with a submaster wing and two Sabre backup consoles. Aucoin has been responsible for lighting and visual content for many years on Dion's touring shows.

The dimmers are run on a distributed Ethernet network. “So rather than having a single dimmer room, we have dimmers distributed all over the building,” Aucoin says. “They all communicate with each other and with the various DMX hubs through the network.”

Crystal Clear Sound

While Dion's show is clearly a visual feast, it remains first and foremost a musical show. Therefore, an equal amount of energy was invested into ensuring that the theater would also deliver a high-quality audio experience. That effort was a difficult one, according to Mooney, given the design of the Colosseum. “It's a round building,” Mooney says. “Any round building has built-in acoustical problems that have to be addressed.”

The primary responsibility for addressing those problems fell to Dion's long-time sound designer, Denis Savage. He designed a 153-speaker system to provide 5.1-surround sound for the audience, built entirely with Meyer Sound self-powered loudspeakers. To control the audio, Savage brought in a Solid State Logic MTP 4848 film studio console — a full digital production console that Mooney claims has never been used before for a live-event application.

The main speaker system at the front of the house consists primarily of Meyer Sound M3D Line Array and M2D Compact Curvilinear Array loudspeakers. Eight M3D cabinets are hung to the left and right of the proscenium, with the center channel routed to dual M2D arrays of eight cabinets each. Three MSL-4 Horn-Loaded Long-Throw loudspeakers are flown outside the main arrays to assure even coverage throughout the wide upper balconies. For sub-bass, the production uses a dozen M3D sub-directional subwoofers, split into two arrays and supplemented by eight ground-stacked USW-1P Compact subwoofers.

For the surround channels, the theater walls are studded with a total of 53 deftly concealed Meyer Sound loudspeakers. Several other Meyer self-powered boxes are located under the balcony edge for those seats that are blocked from the main PA system.

All the Meyer speakers are connected via Meyer's Remote Monitoring System (RMS). In fact, says Mooney, this installation represents the largest RMS network ever built.

“The beauty of the Meyer line arrays and the RMS network is that you are essentially controlling each box on an Ethernet network, allowing you to address cancellation in that box and EQ in that box from the house fixed position,” says Mooney. “With that, we have the ability to adjust the speakers, so that rather than splattering sound all around the room, we can specifically beam sound at the seats, and avoid putting a lot of sound energy against that back wall, which would then focus it in bad locations. So it became important to specifically cover the seating areas, and not just throw up two big PAs on each side of the stage and blast the sound into the room.”

Taken individually, the show's technical components — display, light, sound — are all quite impressive. Even more impressive, however, is the way they have all been synchronized together through the use of a timecode system.

“If you look at any of the other shows on the [Las Vegas strip], such as Blue Man Group or ‘Splash,’” says Mooney, “the stage manager for each of those shows calls the lighting cues, calls the sound cues, and determines when the actors make their entrances and exits. They basically drive the ship. For us, the show is driven by Celine Dion and by her band. Even the video cues and lighting cues, and most of the sound cues, are controlled by timecode that is generated by the band.

“[We use] a MIDI-to-SMPTE timecode interface that generates timecodes that control the hard disk video controllers. They run each of the video sequences that either are projected or show up on the screen. The SSL sound console bottles that timecode and sets [on a song-by-song basis] the various settings for that particular tune. Same thing with the lighting cues — they are triggered by timecode.”

The use of timecode to drive all these components reflects more than just a desire to create an efficiently run production, explains Mooney. It actually is a reflection of one of the show's most fundamental concepts: Dion must be the one driving the show.

“If Celine suddenly decides that song two doesn't quite fit the mood of the moment and she wants to start song number four instead, then the timecode for song four starts with the band director, which in turn will drive the video cues and the lighting cues for song four,” Mooney says. “So it's Celine that feels the audience, and she has the most amazing ability to do that.”

The Gift of Flight

Finally, of course, the show also includes an aerial extravaganza that is the one part of the show that most closely resembles other, high-profile Las Vegas shows. This portion of “A New Day,” of course, is a natural outgrowth of Dragone's past experiences on Cirque du Soleil productions. Still, the director had no intention of replicating Cirque's unique aerials for what was, after all, a much different kind of presentation.

According to Matt Bevacqua, technical director for Flying by Foy, the Las Vegas company hired to help develop the aerial effects for the show, Dragone was very clear that he wanted a different look for “A New Day.”

“From the very beginning, Franco didn't want this to be an acrobatic show,” says Bevacqua. “He wanted to show Celine and show a different side of what he can do. So the effects in this show are striving to not be acrobatic. It's more like the performers are just utilizing different levels of space — where being in the air is just one more level, like being on the stage. You are not seeing performers flying through the air and doing dynamic motions. They are just aiding the overall image that Franco wants to create. But it's not a stunt- or acrobatic-oriented production.”

Making the stage look like some kind of surrealistic, multi-dimensional painting that slowly develops and evolves in front of the audience, however, was a deceptively difficult challenge. Because the aerial movements are slow and graceful, the aerial equipment had to be cleverly designed and programmed to exert precise motion control. Moreover, adds Bevacqua, while the performers in Cirque du Soleil are acrobats trained to be in control of their motions and their equipment, the “New Day” performers are not. That means the equipment has to be in control of the movements, which, in turns, means the show had to take more safety precautions than normal.

“In terms of safety and getting the performers to where they need to be,” says Bevacqua, “we take it from the perspective that the performers are just dancers, and therefore, we have to be in control of everything. Even the precautions we have to take in loading and unloading performers from scenic elements are different than what we'd do if we were dealing with stunt performers and acrobats who are trained for that.”

While some of the aerial equipment used in the show is stock items, such as the wenches used to fly performers vertically up-and-down, other pieces had to be custom designed. The most difficult piece of equipment to create, says Bevacqua, was the rotator carousal used to fly Dion through an aerial ballet during her performance of “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.”

Part of the challenge, according to Bevacqua, came from the fact that “we had to fit these two flying tracks and the rotating carousel into a very tight space, and be able to get the performers from deck level to 90ft. in the air, and unloaded in the air.”

Then, there was the issue of maintaining precise control over the performer's movements in the air. “It is a very graceful, slow-motion dance that happens on this unit, and having 90ft. of cable between the performer and the apparatus makes it very hard to get slow, even movement,” he explains. “It also involves a rotator which can move up to seven RPMs. We don't go nearly that fast in the show, but even at three RPMs, the performers start spinning away from each other. And there were other things in the air that we had to work around, so we had to limit that movement. It was a real challenge programming the unit.”

In all, says Bevacqua, it took nearly four months of rehearsals to develop the aerial choreography, design and install the equipment, and train the performers to acclimate them to the harnesses.


Stephen Porter is a freelance writer who has been covering video, graphics, and digital content creation technologies and applications for more than 15 years. He can be reached at [email protected].


Sidebar

Creating Gigantic Images

The process of creating the gigantic images that fill the Mitsubishi Electric Diamond Vision LED screen as a backdrop for Celine Dion's new Las Vegas show began in late 2001. That's when Franco Dragone hired Dirk Decloedt, an independent writer/director of A/V productions in Belgium, to direct the image creation process.

Working closely with Dragone and Michel Crete, the show's scenic designer, Decloedt helped develop the conceptual ideas for the imagery, and then in mid 2002, he began working with Cine-FX of Brussels to create the actual imagery. About 80% of the imagery used on the LED screen, says Decloedt, consists of 2D and 3D computer graphics, with the rest consisting of high-definition video.

Right from the start, says Decloedt, show creatives knew they didn't want to use the LED screen simply to display IMAG. “We did not want it to have the same effect that you see in most of the shows, where they have big video screens where the audience is basically watching television,” he says. “We used LED as a theatrical tool to enlarge the stage.”

Although Decloedt did make use of IMAG in certain places, it was usually carefully and artfully blended with other lights and images to create an attractive theatrical background. At times, the imagery took on a three-dimensional quality, an illusion that Decloedt's graphics team worked hard to cultivate.

“But all of this could not overshadow Celine, so for each scene, it was a challenge to find the right balance,” he says.

Using LED as a display medium also took some trail and error. “It was always difficult to know how the LED would react to the images we created,” he says.

One thing his team discovered was that, although LED screens are normally very bright, they were only able to use about 1% of its brightness on this project. If they'd used 100% brightness from the giant screen, he says, it would have lit up the whole theater. Using it with a much lower brightness level, however, meant they had to find ways to compensate for other issues, such as banding problems that can crop up during fades.

One scene that required considerable work was the Times Square sequence, used during the big dance number for the song, “I'm Alive.” To create the scene, Decloedt started out by capturing time-lapse video footage of Times Square from different angles in a high-definition video format. “Then, we composited the different shots into a new look of Time Square,” he explains. “We altered the graphical look of the buildings, and we accelerated the video to give it this feeling of urban intensity.”

They also had to alter certain elements in the scene to make it more politically correct for the show. For example, the sign for Lowe's theater in Time Square had to be eliminated since the show's producer, AEG Concerts West, owns the competing Regal Theater chain. And the big Coke logo on one of the Times Square digital billboards had to be changed to satisfy Pepsi's interests in the show.

Decloedt's team used a wide variety of tools to help them create the images. Discreet's 3ds Max and Avid's Softimage XSI were used for 3D graphics creation; Discreet's Flame and Combustion products, along with Apple's Shake and Adobe's AfterEffects, were used for 2D compositing; and Avid's DS HD was used for editing and compositing.
S.P.


Sidebar

Working Las Vegas


Encore Entertainment staged an educational hairstyling event for Redken in the arena at Mandalay Bay.

According to staging professionals experienced in handling corporate events, working in Las Vegas is a whole different ballgame. On the one hand, there's pressure to create corporate events that can comphete with the multi-million dollar entertainment productions Las Vegas has to offer. On the other hand, Las Vegas can offer staging companies a wealth of resources that puts other cities to shame.

Certainly one of the things that makes Las Vegas different from almost any other city in the world is its ability to handle huge crowds and events. Ten years ago, that wasn't the case, says Jamey Gallagher, executive producer of Encore Productions, a Las Vegas-based staging and events company that first began serving the corporate market in 1988. But in the last decade, he says, the city has undergone a building boom that has catapulted it to the top of the heap as a corporate event Mecca.

“In the last couple years, there have been more events coming to Vegas simply because of the size and the scope of the city,” says Gallagher. “There's no city in the world where you can call six months out and book something for a group of 5,000 people. Plus, there are venues here that can accommodate classrooms for 8,000 people in one location. Even five years ago in Vegas, you didn't have a single venue that could handle that. Now MGM and Mandalay Bay can easily handle that.”

Moreover, with more than 100,000 hotel rooms within a short distance of the main strip, Las Vegas can accommodate more people more comfortably than almost any city in the country, with the possible exception of Orlando. “There's more rooms on the four corners of Tropicana and Las Vegas Boulevard than most cities have,” Gallagher notes.

On the downside, working in facilities of such size can present unique challenges. For example, says Warren Tash, account executive of AV Concepts, Los Angeles, who has been staging events in Las Vegas for 10 years, a facility like Mandalay Bay has 5,000 employees, which is almost the size of a small city.

“That creates its own challenges, like just getting to know the staff and learning your way around,” he says. “Because if you get into the back hallways of some of these immense places, you can very easily get lost, especially when you've got a lot of crew coming in, and you have to coordinate logistics for a lot of people.” But the advantages of having these kinds of facilities available far outweigh the disadvantages.

Chris Harrison, president of Anti-Gravity, an aerial acrobatics company often hired to put on acrobatic displays for corporate events, agrees. “The facilities in Las Vegas tend to have high ceilings and rigging points that aren't landmarked, like they are in New York,” says Harrison. “So a lot of the times in Las Vegas, we get to do more exciting and extravagant things.”

James Lanier, owner of Absolute Hollywood, a Houston-based firm that specializes in producing gigantic projection displays, including projections on a 100ft. dome that it often sets up for events, says he too loves Las Vegas' flair for the dramatic. “The really spectacular thing about Las Vegas is that the clients there are always looking for a big splash, a big look, and something unique,” he says. “That plays right into the hands of what we do. We are very much into the gigantic productions and the big show and the big art. And people in Las Vegas are quicker to seize upon that concept and go with it.”

Certainly it's convenient that Las Vegas offers so many professional caliber venues. In just the past year, for example, Encore Productions has produced a customer appreciation event for Red Bull that was held in the Lance Burton Theater in the Monte Carlo hotel, and it has produced an educational conference for Redken in the Mandalay Bay arena.

Although the latter event attracted 8,000 attendees, Encore was able to transform the Mandalay Bay arena into a theater-in-the-round environment that helped create a more personal setting. To create that environment, Encore built a center stage that included a 32ft. turntable, allowing products and events occurring on the stage to be rotated around for maximum viewing efficiency. Coming off the center stage were four runways that allowed fashion models to walk into the audience. Above the stage was a six-side video screen that allowed the audience to see close-ups of hairstyling demonstrations.

While having elaborate venues to work with certainly makes it easier to create extravagant corporate events, sometimes all you need is a little imagination.

That was certainly the case when AV Concepts transformed the Skechers trade show booth into a stage for a high-class fashion show during the World Shoe Association convention in February.

To create the stage, AV Concepts had a stage floor built that could be dramatically lowered from the ceiling and positioned on top of the front desk of the Sketchers' booth to create a stage and runway area that was a good 20ft. long by 15ft. wide. Once in place, show attendees were treated to a 21-minute fashion show that incorporated five different dance numbers with five scene changes, 400 theatrical lights, 150 moving lights, a Meyer Sound Labs' line-array sound system, a Barco LED screen for IMAG, and a nitrogen fog curtain for special effects.

“When you are doing an event in Las Vegas, you have to think that you're producing just one of the shows that these people are going to see,” says AV Concepts' Warren Tash. “So you have to be able to compare favorably with the other things that are available.”
S.P.


Sidebar

Survival in Glitz City

From the disappearing white tigers of Siegfried & Roy to the flying acrobats of Cirque du Soleil, Las Vegas has become a town where the spectacular has become ordinary and success is dependent upon your ability to push the edges of human imagination.

While some would argue that the dazzling use of technology in A New Day has raised the bar once again for all Las Vegas productions, the show’s technical director, Rick Mooney, is not convinced that distinction will last long.

"I think that while we probably did raise the bar, I don’t think anybody is particularly shy about trying to raise it again," he says. "There are at least four new shows that are in production right now that I know of. People will continue to chase the entertainment dollar in Las Vegas."

But while it sometimes seems that success in modern day Las Vegas depends solely upon the ability of a production to implement the latest in cutting-edge technology, that isn’t necessarily always the case. For example, one show in Las Vegas that has continued to thrive with only marginal changes in the last 22 years is the French musical revue, Jubilee!, which continues to draw crowds to its home at Bally’s. Where once Las Vegas played host to numerous such productions, Jubilee! has become one of the last of a dying breed.

The one significant concession it has made to advancing technology occurred a year-and- a-half ago when the production brought in a $2 million ETC lighting system, which gave the show the ability to create smoother transitions between cues and a far greater ability to create different effects in terms of light movement, pattern, and color. Beyond that, however, the show remains largely unchanged and contains virtually no high-tech video displays of any kind. Still, insists Louis Bradfield, head electrician for Jubilee!, "I think we are right up there with the other shows in town. I think in terms of staging sophistication we are as good as anybody else."

He might have a point. Although Jubilee’s technology maybe long in the tooth, it is still effective in creating a dazzling show spectacle. The show features four big production numbers, all related to old Hollywood movies. The two most dramatic special effects moments in the show are the sinking of the Titanic and the destruction of the Temple of the Philistines by Samson. The scenes are pulled off through the use of three giant stage lifts, each with a lifting capacity of 100,000lbs., to lift giant set pieces and staircases.

Beyond that, the show, at various times, makes use of eight other stage lifts, and it also makes extensive use of pyrotechnics, dry ice fog, Rosco smoke, and CO2 steam. There are big dance numbers, dazzling costumes, and even a 90ft. bridge that swings out over the audience, allowing performers to cross between two side stages located on each side of the theater, 12ft. above the audience.

Bradfield readily concedes that newer productions in town are using more state-of-the-art equipment, but he argues that doesn’t mean such equipment is necessary to put on a good show.

"A lot of the things being done today, we were doing years and years ago with equipment that was cutting edge at that time,” he says. “Maybe it isn’t cutting edge today, but it’s doing the same type of thing."

Moreover, he adds, the secret to Jubiliee’s survival may simply lay in the fact that it can offer audiences something different.

"As one of the last French musical revues left in town, we are different than some of the things being done today," he says. "We give the audience a different viewpoint, and we are presenting a show of a style they don’t see anymore. It’s a lot more than just flashing lights and loud music."

— Stephen Porter