Big and brassy, but also short and sassy

YOU know you’re in a Las Vegas theater when: a) there are cup holders in the seats; b) people are dressed in everything from evening wear to tank tops; c) requests to turn off cellphones are ignored; or d) all of the above.

The city that now bills itself as the “entertainment capital of the world” caters to its show audiences in ways that traditional theater-goers may not always appreciate. But hey, this is Vegas.

“In New York, you can’t bring a drink into the theater,” says Scott Zeiger, executive producer of “Phantom of the Opera,” which begins previews this week at the Venetian. “In Vegas, it’s a holdover from the Rat Pack days where watching the act is a party and festive experience.

“In New York or Los Angeles, when the theater ends, people go home. People in Las Vegas don’t go back to their room after the show. Their night’s only just begun. They go on to gamble, late-night dinners or to a nightclub,” he adds. “The fact that the shows are under two hours plays to the focused attention span of the visitors who may have only two days and three nights, and want to pack everything in.”

The appetite for live theater in Vegas has grown in recent years, with more Broadway productions settling in for the long haul. These theatrical shows feature extravaganzas and technological wizardry, and producers make no bones about what gets butts in the seats.

“Everything in the Vegas market that’s successful offers sensory overload,” Zeiger says. “We don’t want people to see the same ‘Phantom’ they could see anywhere else in the world. People are willing to pay more here than they are for Broadway, and expect to see the unexpected.”

Indeed, audiences will be seeing a different “Phantom” when the show officially opens on June 24. Housed in a specially built 1,800-seat theater, the production, which cost a reported $35 million, will run about 90 minutes instead of the usual 2 1/2 hours.

Orchestra seats at that show, as well as a handful of other Vegas productions, have a top price of $150. By contrast, the highest priced seat in New York is $111.25, with special “premium seats” available for some shows at premium prices. In Los Angeles, ticket prices are slightly lower, topping out at about $95.

Veteran theater-goers have mixed reactions to seeing performances in Las Vegas because of audience behaviors that are enthusiastic at best, and rude at worst.

“In New York, going to the show is an experience with people who understand what they’re watching,” says frequent theater patron Scott Marshall of Studio City. “People talk about the story, character development and the theater itself.

“My partner and I go at least once a month to something in L.A. or New York. I go to Vegas because of the trade shows,” says Marshall, director of marketing for Gurhan, a jeweler in New York. “There, I’ve heard people talk through performances, which annoys me beyond belief. It’s like an adult Disneyland. People don’t know that when the cast is singing the grand finale, you don’t stand up to get out to beat the crowd.”

*

Go with the flow

ON the other hand, serious theater-goers say audience enjoyment of a show can make Vegas performances engaging on a different level.

“In Vegas, audiences are a little bit more laid-back and relaxed,” says Ramona Mucciolo, a retired executive with Manpower employment services who lives with her husband in Burbank and Michigan. “We’ve done theater in London, L.A., Chicago, New York and Vegas. You don’t go to Vegas for serious theater, you go for amazement and great costumes. Audience behavior in Vegas can be distracting, but I don’t mind it there because, in a way, it’s part of the performance I’m seeing.”

Mario D’Amico, vice president of marketing for Cirque du Soleil, says the audience demographics for touring Cirque shows and the Vegas shows are the same. Ticket buyers tend to have a higher than average education, travel frequently, are relatively well-to-do and socially active, he notes.

The five Cirque shows in Las Vegas -- “O,” “Mystere,” “Ka,” “Zumanity” and the new “Love” -- are in fixed venues and are more elaborate because of access to technology not available on tour, he says. Cirque shows in Vegas run 90 minutes, and those on tour run 2 to 2 1/2 hours.

Are Vegas audiences more rowdy than those in other cities?

“I went to see ‘Spamalot’ in New York, and it was a raucous audience,” D’Amico says. “It’s a noisy show, and people were laughing and giggling. When I compare that to the ‘Avenue Q’ performance I saw in Vegas, it wasn’t that different.

“Broadway audiences in New York generally are older and stodgier than audiences in a Vegas Broadway show. There are no rules in Vegas, and even little things like being mindful of others when you make people get up because you forgot to go to the bathroom aren’t observed.”

With more than 38 million visitors going through Las Vegas annually, he says, there’s a new audience to be served every four to five days.

This may also explain why some audience members behave in ways in which they might not normally behave at home, says Gary Gardner, a theater professor at UCLA.

“You’re not held accountable by people you know, so you’re less inhibited and feel free to eat or talk during a show,” he says. “I went to see ‘Mamma Mia!’ there because one of my ex-students was performing in the ensemble. If you really wanted to get involved in the plot, you’d have a hard time because people put their feet up on the back of the chairs in front of them and talk among themselves, like my grandmother talked to herself while watching television.”

Centuries ago, Gardner says, audiences were really rowdy in Shakespearean times, laughing, drinking and going in and out of the theater during performances. In modern times, though, audiences in New York began dressing up to go to the theater around 1910, when the Ziegfeld Follies became popular.

“Since Broadway began, most of the New York houses had a paid ushering staff, and you couldn’t get too out of hand without being tapped on the shoulder,” he says. “In L.A., most of the ushers are volunteers or students who fill out the staff, and they can be negligent about quieting people down if they get rowdy.

“In New York, people tend to dress better for shows, but they talk more. The audience in L.A. is more respectful of theater, but L.A. is the worst in being a water-drinking town. I see several people getting up and going to the bathroom here in the middle of shows. Vegas audiences are more like movie audiences. It’s the cellphones. I can’t believe people don’t know how to turn them off.”

When it comes to regulating the conduct of audiences in Vegas, casinos and production companies are careful to say that they encourage everyone to have a good time, and that when it comes to appreciating shows, everyone’s taste and reaction is different.

“We believe ‘The Producers’ will be extremely popular,” says Michael Weaver, vice president of marketing for Paris Las Vegas, where “The Producers” is scheduled to open this summer. “Most tickets will be paid tickets, so people coming really want to see the show. Only our highest tier of customer will receive complimentary tickets. For other shows in town, comp tickets can vary from 5% to 40% of the house.”

One of the longest-running musicals in Vegas is “Mamma Mia!,” which has been playing at the Mandalay Bay since 2003. Unlike other traditional Broadway shows in town, “Mamma Mia!” runs two hours with a 15-minute intermission, rather than a shortened 90 minutes.

Nina Lannan, executive producer and general manager of the show, oversees “Mamma Mia!” in North America and on tour and says many things can affect audience behavior. Being on vacation and being able to bring drinks into the theater is just part of it, she says.

“The experience of being in a theater with a group of people who are all focused on the same thing is a wonderful experience,” Lannan says. “When I’ve sat in focus groups for ‘Mamma Mia!’ and other shows, participants say they want to dress up, go to a theater and escape for two hours.

“In Vegas, you don’t have to drive a distance to get to a theater. You can combine a show with dinner and other things in the evening. People in Vegas can get dressed up if they want, or not if they don’t want to. We haven’t heard a lot of complaints about audience behavior there, compared to other cities. If anything, people want to sing along.”

*

The play’s not the thing

LANNAN notes that tourists in Vegas probably want a lighter theatrical experience than audiences who frequent shows in New York or Los Angeles.

“ ‘Sweeney Todd’ in New York right now is enjoying enormous success,” Lannan notes, “but people question whether it would work in Vegas because of the seriousness of the subject matter and the listening required by the audience to appreciate it.”

Some audience members say extra attention is often needed to enjoy what’s onstage when the show is on the Strip.

“I’ve seen ‘O’ and ‘Mystere’ twice, and it’s like going to a backyard barbecue with people in flip-flops who are on their cellphones during the performance,” says Eddie Conner, a life coach in Los Feliz. “The people onstage are working hard to give you an escape, and if you’re there working your BlackBerry, you’re not really there for the right reason.”

Conner says intention is everything in life, and the intention of tourists who go to Vegas is not to sleep or rest, but to run from one activity to the next.

“There are no windows in casinos, and they constantly feed you liquor, so you’re tired and zoned out,” he says. “When you go to New York on vacation, and go to the Broadway shows, people are willing to take a journey from the inside out. Vegas stimulates you from the outside in. It doesn’t feed your heart and soul, and real art does.

“All I can suggest is that if you’re sitting in a Vegas audience that’s distracting to you, set your intention to have a good time, and don’t let someone else’s behavior ruin your experience.”