Cirque comes together with Beatles
Fab Four tuner will see Mirage in Vegas
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It will replace Siegfried & Roy's animal act at the Mirage. That show closed a year ago after Roy Horn was injured by one of the act's tigers.
All profits from the show will be equally divided among Apple Corps, Cirque and the Mirage.
Under working title "The Boys," new show will use the voices of the Beatles as well as live music. An initial idea, staging the Beatles' "Yellow Submarine," was scrapped early on in the show-building process.
Production grew out of the friendship between Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberte and the late George Harrison, who met in 2000. "We planted the embryo of a common dream," Laliberte said Thursday. "Roy's unfortunate accident caused this project to be fast-tracked."
"The Boys" is expected to cost $30 million to mount and about $100 million for theater construction costs (to be assumed by the Mirage).
Apple Corps managing director Neil Aspinall said the project went forward after the approval of surviving Beatles Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr. John Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, and George Harrison's widow, Olivia Harrison, also agreed to the collaboration. Neither McCartney nor Starr will appear in the show.
Although no plot points have as yet been announced, Laliberte said the show would have a loose script that celebrates the music and the times of the Beatles.
"The Boys" will be housed in a 2,000-seat theater-in-the-round that aims to create a closeness between performers and audience.
Original Beatles producer George Martin will oversee show's musical elements, with Dominic Champagne helming and writing the project.
Not longer in 'Oz'
Laliberte described the show in terms that rule out either a fictional narrative, a la "Mamma Mia!," or a bio like "The Boy From Oz."
"We're not going in for that wax-museum kind of thing," he said. "We will do it Cirque du Soleil-style. We want to evoke the spirit of the Beatles, not create a cartoon or a documentary."
The music will be "the original band and vocal tracks, not a medley, not a remix, not a hip-hop treatment," Cirque prexy Daniel Lamarre said. "The real thing, but given a special rendering. That will be our surprise."
With 196 Beatles songs in the Apple Corps catalog, deciding which songs will make the final cut will be difficult. "There will be a record in conjunction with the show," Aspinall said.
Lamarre said Michael Jackson's ownership of the Beatles' catalog will not influence the project.
"Jackson is only one of the publishing partners, and Sony Music manages the account," he said. "We do not have to deal with Jackson at all."
"The Boys" will be the fifth Cirque du Soleil production to simultaneously play Las Vegas.
Beatle bailiwick
The Cirque Beatles project has no effect on the upcoming stage tuner "Lennon," scheduled to open in San Francisco this winter en route to Broadway; that show uses Lennon's post-Beatles songs.
The Cirque Beatles show will, however, affect productions like the perpetually touring "Beatlemania."
"From now on, no one else has the rights to put the Beatles onstage," Lamarre said. "We have a partnership with Apple Corps and it is unique. We are the only ones."
(Richard Ouzounian in Toronto contributed to this report.)
