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Dreaming out loud: Charles Ressler aims to inspire Las Vegas with ‘Brave’

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Photo: Adam Shane

"I had this vision of a ball of light inside my stomach growing and growing and growing and growing until it shot out of my eyes and out of my fingertips and enveloped the whole room and all of the grounds of the temple and everything I knew was around the temple that I could visualize. I could see silhouettes of people, and as my light hit them their light started shining brighter than my light. And it was almost instantaneous that I met myself for the first time,” Charles Ressler says, on the phone with me on his way to many somewheres, talking about enlightenment in Thailand as he tries to explain the crazy thing he’s about to do in Las Vegas.

April 2, on the Smith Center stage where world-famous artists have stood, Ressler will tell the story of his life. Picture a set using “The Little Prince, Edward Scissorhands and Avatar as lenses to reimagine an art-deco bandstand show that you’d see in a Hollywood film.” Picture Ressler flying on silks and singing original songs and custom arrangements of favorites from the Great American Songbook, current pop and Broadway, amplified by an orchestra. He says the “alchemy and magic” start the moment you arrive, and that his personal tales are metaphors for three local charities that will split all of the proceeds from his one-night-only creation, Brave.

“I’m hoping that by telling the most vulnerable and the hardest and the most beautiful and joyous things that I know ... and also platforming the bravest people in our community, that maybe it can create a shift in the thinking of how things happen here. Brave is about changing your comfort zone.”

Maybe Las Vegas can impact the status quo of the world, he muses. First, the people must be moved to let their light shine, whether or not it shoots from their eyes.

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Ressler isn’t moonlighting from a production in a Strip showroom or even a tiny neighborhood theater. While press materials for Brave indicate a “decade-long professional acting career” (mostly on the stages of his native New York), he hasn’t been in that scene for more than a decade. He says he feels like a different person.

Since he moved to Las Vegas four years ago, he’s established himself as one of those characters who’s always creating or talking about creating and trying to be connective tissue for the power players and the upstarts. He headed up marketing and sponsorships for First Friday for a time and has curated Downtown happenings from art events to speaker series. If you’ve been to Downtown Cocktail Room, you’ve probably seen him sipping Green Chartreuse with a splash of Yellow and talking about audacious things like they’re entirely ordinary.

Brave, however, scares him—despite the impressive village of volunteers and paid artists he’s assembled to pull it off, from director Larry Pellegrini (one of the creators of Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding) to executive producer Jeff Gitlin (a former agent with ICM Partners and 3 Arts) to music director Jimmy Lockett (whose Broadway chops include starring roles in Cats and Starlight Express). Ressler has been onstage plenty. But he’s never worn so many hats for a show, because it has never been his. He lists about a dozen roles, from writer to event planner to athlete. “This is some Barbra Streisand sh*t, you know what I mean? Nothing has prepared me.”

When I saw him training on the aerial silks at Shine Alternative Fitness in early March, he was still learning the basics. He had about a month to get mentally and physically fit to maximize the dramatic spectacle and minimize the odds of untimely death.

“The baby is growing. I know it’s there,” says his coach Delphine Gaillard, a Cirque soloist who performed in The Beatles Love for eight years. Ressler tells her that his skin is raw from the last session, and she affectionately says she doesn’t care.

Hands gripping a green hammock, he flips up into a tuck and down into a hummingbird pose, Gaillard urging him to keep his knees straight. The timeline is incredibly tight, but she says her student is incredibly focused. “Maybe you’re going to look at Charles’ routine and be like, ‘Okay, he’s doing two positions.’ That’s not the point. The point is, he’s doing what he wants to do. He’s doing his dream,” she says, adding that simple tricks can be the most moving. “You can do a triple flip, something very complicated and hard and painful, and people don’t react. You just fly, they’re like, ‘Wow!’ because it’s something you bring from your heart.” Ressler says they should try a triple anyway.

He doesn’t appear to be stopped by thoughts of what’s realistic, considering Brave will debut about four months after he began working on it in earnest. The foundational story was a book proposal he started more than a year ago, and intended to finish during his October trip to Southeast Asia. It wasn’t a vacation so much as an escape.

Ressler says the unraveling began with the end of the long relationship that brought him from New York to Vegas. Then the “fall-apart” started with Downtown Project. Ressler had been a ferocious cheerleader for the revitalization machine, which he worked with through First Friday. While he leaves founder Tony Hsieh out of it, he says some of the people who ended up running DTP were greedy “mean girls.” The suicide of Venture for America fellow Ovik Banerjee and the layoffs at DTP later in 2014 left Ressler “shattered.” So he flew to Bangkok alone without so much as a hotel room booked, and with no plan beyond a Burning Man-inspired desire to tap into some ancient Buddhist energy.

Inside Phuket’s Chalong Temple, he had the vision of his inner light spreading. That, a visit to a Cambodian orphanage and a side trip to see an old friend in Switzerland helped Ressler decide that after everything Las Vegas had given him, he couldn’t leave without trying to make it better.

I ask what the city has given him, and he has a hard time articulating it. Finally he talks about parallels to The Little Prince, a darkly whimsical children’s book that is his totem. “Just when the aviator is about to lose all his hope and die, the little prince says, sometimes if you imagine a well in a desert, one appears. And it’s not lost on me ... how Las Vegas begins with a well. Then over generations, this place has been consistently built on the back of grief. And I do believe that in all situations except one grief always brings you a gift at the end, which is possibility. And that is Las Vegas. ... You don’t have a target on your back here with unique ideas. Nobody faults you for thinking of something and trying to make it come to fruition. This place is very brave.”

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Even with responsive lighting designed by Todd VonBastiaans and sets made by artists Alexandria Lee, Amos Martinez and Justin Lepper, Ressler says the show’s big creative element is the coming together of its beneficiaries: I Have a Dream Foundation of Southern Nevada, Opportunity Village and the Las Vegas Philharmonic.

Closest to his heart is I Have a Dream. He says that for the first six years of his life he dealt with a heroin-addicted mother who was often absent, and that Child Protective Services took him away. In his eyes, that trauma echoes the circumstances of at-risk and under-resourced kids adopted by I Have a Dream.

Modeled on Eugene Lang’s original phenomenon in East Harlem, the local offshoot stays with its dreamers from sixth grade through freshman year of college, partnering with organizations like Three Square and Specialized Alternatives for Families and Youth to provide "collective-impact" support customized to each kid, from counseling to success planning, academic management to basic needs.

“When we meet the kids in the sixth grade, there is a lot of hesitation, because there are a lot of programs that promise the world to children ... and they don’t deliver,” says Lindsay Harper, I Have a Dream’s executive director for the past decade. “We start with a character development program, which really sits down with them and says: What are you afraid of? What kind of person do you want to be? Do you feel like you have purpose in your life? And then we start building a model around them.”

Harper tells me about Otis. He was throwing desks and cussing out teachers when he came to the program. Through counseling, volunteering and labs focused on life skills and coping mechanisms, he overcame the anger rooted in feeling out of control and inadequate. Rather than “one of those statistics,” Otis is now a model student at West Preparatory Academy, with a 3.75 GPA and dreams of studying architecture at the University of Oregon. “What I know to be very true is that most children, if you sit them down and look them in the eyes and say, ‘You can do this,’ all of a sudden they start believing it,” Harper says.

Las Vegas’ first dreamers, adopted in 1996, finished the program in 2012, with 99 percent graduating from high school and going on to post-secondary education. That crushes the Nevada stat for at-risk, under-resourced kids, with only 24 percent making it through senior year. But for every Otis, $3,200 is spent annually, and Harper says $1 million must be raised to start a new cohort. Considering the impact of 75 to 100 kids realizing their worth and applying it, I Have a Dream seems like an easy sell. But Harper says it’s hard to make noise in the crowded philanthropic landscape.

“I think we have more [nonprofits] per capita than any other state in the nation. … For a long time there’s been all of this silo building,” Harper says, applauding Ressler’s effort to spur collaboration as well as the hours he’s volunteered for the dreamers and his commitment to share their story through Brave. “I hope [audiences] walk away understanding that there is this really big need in our community to support our students, and that all kids matter, and that even somebody as poised and beautiful and amazing as Charles has come from environments like the kids that we’re serving.”

Recognition isn’t an issue for Opportunity Village. The 60-year-old institution operates three campuses, serving 2,000 individuals with intellectual disabilities every day. It hosts high-profile events and has become a model for other nonprofits, as it generates 80 percent of its own budget through donations and productive endeavors ranging from document shredding to cookie sales. The problem is the perception that such a strong organization doesn’t need support.

“No good deed goes unpunished,” Linda Smith says with a weary laugh. The associate executive director and chief development officer began volunteering at Opportunity Village more than 30 years ago, and she points out that for the past nine, the state has not increased the fund that bolsters its resources. “Nevada ranks bottom of the pile in available funds for people with intellectual and related disabilities. It’s the worst in the nation, so thank God for Opportunity Village.”

She speaks from the heart, as a mom whose life was changed by it. “My own son Christopher was born with Down syndrome. I was pretty well told to put him away, put him in an institution, forget about him,” Smith says. But at Opportunity Village he has learned a trade and earns wages alongside his peers (totaling nearly $8 million across the organization last year). “Opportunity Village becomes more than an employment training center. It’s social; it’s friendships; it’s a place where you can learn; it’s a lifeline for families like mine ... because you know your child is being productive and participating in a program where he’s valued and loved and respected.”

The next phase is a residential campus, as individuals with disabilities are starting to outlive their caregivers. A campaign has been launched, and the presence Opportunity Village will have in the lobby during Brave is a chance for the community to meet its “best sales representatives,” the OVIPs. Ressler says their warmth and genuine curiosity make you think about your own emotional disabilities. “If I fit in anywhere, as someone who doesn’t fit in in this world, it’s at O.V.”

Ressler also gushes about the Las Vegas Philharmonic, the resident company of the grand hall where he’ll perform Brave. “The Philharmonic has done some extremely brave things in order to engage this community,” he says, adding that it was launched in a city where maybe a thousand people give a damn.

Jeri Crawford is one of those people. When her fiancé (now her husband of 11 years) asked her to move to Vegas, she said that was fine as long as he bought season tickets to the symphony.

Soon after arriving from her native San Diego, Crawford joined the Philharmonic’s board. A decade later she is president of the board and the entire organization, happily volunteering her time. She has seen the Phil through changes both challenging and triumphant, some tied to development of the greater culture. “What’s happening here reminds me of where the arts were 20 or 25 years ago in San Diego,” she says. “There’s a lot of incentive to work with other organizations in town to try to rebrand this Las Vegas that we live in.”

The Phil will do its part in its first full season with conductor Donato Cabrera, unveiling a slate of new programming this week. There’s a build-your-own series and spotlights on small ensembles, and the youth concert series is expanding to serve 32,000 students over two weeks. Buzz-worthy guest acts include fusion orchestra Pink Martini and Broadway star Alexandra Silber, and while Crawford is thrilled about such visiting talent, she hopes supporters remember that Phil musicians actually live in this community, so dollars paid to them go back to Las Vegas.

She hopes they remember last year’s Life Is Beautiful, too, when the orchestra played Beatles hits alongside dancers and acrobats from Cirque du Soleil’s Love. “It was one of the greatest things we did,” says Crawford, who sees Brave as another way to harness the energy and chemistry of multiple creative forces. “We don’t have to be out there as the Lone Ranger anymore. That’s how so many of these nonprofits felt for a long time. But I think everybody’s kind of reaching across the aisle and saying, let’s think about what we can do together. How can we make this better? How can we reach more people?”

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If Ressler’s other vision manifests, these causes will reach a sellout crowd of 2,050.

“It was more like a transmutation, where all of a sudden the environment around me turned to the stage at Reynolds Hall, and I could see and experience the feeling of what it was like to be performing on that stage. And then the next flash was a Facebook post that said: ‘I just sold out Reynolds Hall.’ And it had 237 comments on it. ... I thought, I wonder how you do this?

He got a primer December 20, performing a 14-song revue at the Smith Center’s Cabaret Jazz to mark his 30th birthday. He says he learned of the opportunity while he was abroad and had less than two weeks to put it together. It didn’t show. From Sarah Vaughan’s “Black Coffee” to “Curbside Prophet” by Jason Mraz, he made familiar songs fresh and gripping. Not because he was technically flawless. Because he seemed totally committed, from the high notes to the dark and sweet asides about who he is.

“Charles is one of the most real people you will ever meet. He is not pretending to be the way he is. He is the way he is. And he has the ability to completely be in that onstage,” says his voice coach Jimmy Lockett, a Juilliard-trained composer who’s directing the music and doing all of the arrangements for Brave.

Working with Ressler over the past six months, Lockett has seen a tremendous range of vocal colors, amazing charisma, insane work ethic and a way of communicating that is “enormously powerful and entertaining.” Does he think it’s a little nuts what his student is planning to do April 2? Absolutely, given the timeline. But when insanity works, it looks a lot like bravery. “I do not think you can bring expectations, because they will not be met. If you’re thinking spectacle, or if you’re thinking arty, or if you’re thinking intimate, or if you’re thinking grandiose, the best thing you can do is leave all that alone. Because what you’re getting is Charles, and Charles is a unique individual. ... For him, everything is a personal statement that has import and meaning for this moment.”

When it comes, Ressler will unleash what he considers his greatest strength: “a voice that works.” And he’s not talking about his falsetto. He knows people might love or hate what he has to say, and that some might see Brave more as an opulent showcase than a heartfelt fundraiser. “It’s what I can give back that drove it, more than what I can gain. Which is also a lot, and that’s kind of the point. By helping everyone around you, you’re also helping yourself,” Ressler says, asking how meaningful success can be if you don't lift others up to fly with you.

His goal is to raise $150,000 for the dreamers, musicians and OVIPs, made possible by sponsors like Zappos and Switch four-walling Reynolds Hall. And coinciding with Brave, he’ll launch dreamMaker, his app for sharing and realizing dreams.

Michael Cornthwaite, a dynamic entrepreneur and driver of Downtown's renaissance, was part of a meeting of the minds about dreamMaker last May. The owner of Downtown Cocktail Room has known Ressler in a "friendly neighbor capacity" for several years. He doesn't know much about Brave but plans to attend. Looking back on his own wild ventures, he says that if he had been more realistic about the time and sacrifices there are things he wouldn't have dared. He can appreciate Ressler's nerve, "the passion and disregard for the scope of the challenges."

"Downtown needs 100 more of this kind of person."

Ressler says that he’ll wake up on April 3 with no money and no idea what’s next. But on April 2, no matter who’s there or how they feel about his treatment of Nat King Cole and that ball of light, all he can do is let it rip.

Brave April 2, 7:30 p.m. doors, $22-99 (limited $5 & $10 tickets for Smith Center newbies with the honor-system promo code BEBRAVE). Smith Center's Reynolds Hall, 702-749-2000.

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