After seeing the launch of the well-reviewed and hyper-buzzy comedy Opium at the Cosmopolitan, the expansion of the schedule and cast for the beloved Absinthe at Caesars Palace and the debut of the disco-themed We Are Here, destined for a Vegas venue, 2018 might go down as the biggest year yet for Spiegelworld in Las Vegas.
“It was certainly the most fun year, because it was all about growth and development,” says Ross Mollison, founder of the Vaudevillian entertainment production company. “We’re [now] doing 728 shows a year at Absinthe. … That’s been really satisfying. You make all these plans and have all these dreams and everything takes longer than you want, but slowly, piece by piece, it all comes together.”
Spiegelworld’s success in Las Vegas might have come together slowly in Mollison’s mind, but it was only seven years ago—in April 2011—that Absinthe debuted in a tent on the Strip in front of Caesars Palace. Since, the show has become one of the most influential in Vegas entertainment, combining traditional Strip production elements in new and different ways.
The Vegas Nocturne comedy-variety show that opened with the Cosmopolitan’s Rose.Rabbit.Lie. restaurant in 2014 didn’t pan out, but Mollison says the success of Opium in that same venue is vindicating. “The room is fantastic,” he says. “Everyone always said that room was a terrible location, but it’s at the Cosmopolitan. It’s the best resort in Vegas. It’s a 300-seat room that’s technically incredible, and it’s intimate, an incredible space for comedy.”
Mollison is currently negotiating to finalize a venue and timeline for the opening of We Are Here, which he projects will land in a space that holds around 600 people. The company is also working on another new show—for the 2018 Edinburgh Fringe Festival—that could also make its way to the Strip. And a version of the massive Tree of Ténéré from the Burning Man festival, complete with 30,000 LED leaf-lights, is scheduled to travel to Caesars Palace, as an addition to the Absinthe courtyard.
“At Burning Man, going to the tree was an extraordinary experience, and I’m hoping to keep some element of that in our presentation on the Strip,” Mollison says. “Maybe people will just look at it and go, ‘Yeah,’ or maybe it will become an iconic thing. Maybe we’ll open the bar at midnight and start serving pancakes at 8 a.m. That’s what we’ve got to do in Vegas, come up with unexpected ideas.”
Moving in unexpected directions has always been the strategy for Spiegelworld, which also moved into its new offices in a former East Fremont Street bakery recently. Once the building gets revamped, could it become more than just Spiegelworld’s headquarters? Expect surprises.
