‘Madhouse’ offers wild asylum if you’re hip enough to get in

NEXT month will mark the second anniversary of the night promoter Jeff Beacher introduced himself here with a literal splash. The Billboard Music Awards were taking place at the MGM, and Beacher snuck into the casino disguised as a maintenance worker. At around 250 pounds, he stripped down to a Speedo and plunged into a fish tank near the popular nightclub Studio 54 with a sign promoting the opening night of his show “Beacher’s Comedy Madhouse” at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino.

This is not how the big corporations that run Las Vegas casino resorts operate, and Kevin Kelley, president of the Hard Rock, recalls his surprised reaction to the headliner’s actions: “It was kind of a love-hate thing. I loved the national attention that we got. I hated the fact that my counterparts at the MGM were doing everything they could to extract their pound of flesh.”

At the time, Beacher was banned from all MGM properties; that ban is now lifted. These days Beacher no longer does stunts like that; he has moved swiftly from outsider to Vegas insider. According to Kelley, “I’ve never seen anyone come to town and learn the game as quickly as he did and ingratiate himself to a lot of the key players in the city and figure out how to capitalize on it.”

Similarly, his show, now known simply as “Beacher’s Madhouse,” has been transformed through its creator’s lightning grasp of how to best appeal to the Las Vegas entertainment market. “It’s developed from a stand-up comedy show with a little variety,” Beacher explains, “to a full variety show with a little stand-up comedy, and the whole crazy, wild atmosphere.”

Beacher was a lifelong New Yorker working in sales when he tried to make a career in stand-up comedy. Eventually he decided it would be easier to promote his own events, which resulted in “Madhouse’s” beginning at several New York venues.

He arrived at the Hard Rock with a four-show deal and quickly became the first regular headliner since the casino opened in 1995. Beacher now does three seasons a year at the Hard Rock, where he offers a show a week for 10 weeks. His next shows are in February.

According to Kelley: “We had everything from Green Day to the Rolling Stones. We founded our business by creating unique events on a frequent basis. With Beacher we brought a show to town that was completely unique. It is a place where people can really blow up, and it speaks to our core demographic and the other shows in town don’t do that.”

In fact, “Beacher’s Madhouse” is hardly a show at all. It is more a party with a general focus on stuff happening onstage, though more is usually happening in the crowd. Part of the appeal is that Beacher has an uncanny knack for packing his crowd with the A-list. This past season the guest list included Pete Rose, Britney Spears, Quentin Tarantino and Paris Hilton. Hilton has been a particularly dedicated fan. “If you go to Vegas you definitely have to go to ‘Beacher’s Madhouse,’ ” she says. “It’s the craziest show I have ever seen in my life. It is so much fun. I always go to it every time I go to Vegas.”

Beyond the celebrities, the evening is a nonstop, three-hour mix of sideshow elements including a woman who strips down to pasties to lie on broken glass, acrobats from Africa, a comedian and -- this is the key -- lots and lots of sexy women (about 100 on the payroll and hundreds more in the audience).

As Lindsay Pavalko, the show’s VIP coordinator, says to those hoping to get into “Madhouse”: “If you are not a cute girl, bring a lot of hot girls with you.” Even tickets are optional if you’ve got the look. For those who are less attractive, aren’t known gamblers or, say, just happen to be male, getting

into “Madhouse” even with a ticket can mean a three-hour wait.

In short, this is the same VIP clientele and slew of celebrities (who make a casino hot enough to draw L.A.’s rich and fabulous) that the Hard Rock fights the Palms Casino Hotel to get. And, though it is not something either Beacher or the Hard Rock will address, before Beacher came along the Palms was doing a far better job at getting them to come play. Beacher has become the Hard Rock’s equivalent of a big fat Palms Girl.

Despite how hot and hip Beacher’s show aspires to be, it does share something with old-style Vegas entertainment. For a show that began so far outside Vegas traditions, the success of “Beacher’s Madhouse” goes back to the logic of the Vegas of old: If you bring them they will gamble.

Cirque show’s milestone

ALSO celebrating its second anniversary recently was “Zumanity” at New York New York. This show too has changed a great deal since opening, and the current production is arguably less sexually risque and certainly more dance-based. The adult-themed show, advertised as “Another Side of Cirque,” received some harsh reviews at first. According to Jerry Nadal, general manager for Cirque du Soleil’s resident shows in Las Vegas: “We really took a gamble with our audience with the Cirque du Soleil name because it wasn’t a ‘Mystere’ or an ‘O.’ ”

Of course, it also would have been a risk for Cirque to decline the challenge to create an erotic show for the resort. When “Zumanity” debuted there were media reports that sales for the show -- which then, as now, was among the few on the Strip to explicitly appeal to a gay and lesbian clientele -- were bumpy. But according to Nadal, that perception was inaccurate. Nadal says that from the first, Zumanity was averaging sales of 90% of its 1,259 seats. Nadal admits that despite the strong sales, the process of “Zumanity” finding its artistic footing and audience was not so easy: “The ‘Zumanity’ process was very difficult because it was an area we went into that really wasn’t our forte. The first several months were very difficult.”

Now Cirque is working to create other adult shows using the “Another Side of Cirque” tag.