Wynn to Revamp ‘Le Reve’

Wynn Las Vegas, casino mogul Steve Wynn’s flagship resort, will pay $15.9 million to buy the rights to its headline show “Le Reve” from creator Franco Dragone so he can add lights, lasers and perhaps more performers.

The sum, revealed in a filing this week by Wynn Resorts Ltd. to the Securities Exchange Commission, will pay for “substantially all rights in and to the show and to repay certain unreimbursed excess production costs,” the filing said.

The move came as competition for entertainment dollars on the Las Vegas Strip has intensified. On Tuesday, the Tony-winning musical “Hairspray” announced it was ending its run at the Luxor hotel-casino after less than four months because of poor ticket sales. That closing follows the premature shuttering of Tony-winning “Avenue Q” last month after a disappointing nine-month engagement at Wynn Las Vegas.

Ingrid Jensen, marketing advisor for Dragone’s company, Productions du Dragon, said Wynn asked Dragone personally to make the changes but Dragone was too busy with other projects, such as the Montreal-based show “Le Graal,” to take them on.

In Dragone’s place, Wynn has hired the artistic director of surrealist dance troupe company MOMIX, Moses Pendleton, to complete the expansion of the show by some time in 2007, Jensen said.

Neither Wynn nor Pendleton could be reached for comment.