Any bit of live entertainment in Las Vegas has obviously adjusted to COVID conditions, but the Tape Face show running Tuesday through Sunday at 7:30 p.m. (plus 4:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday) at the Harrah’s Showroom has made more changes than most.

Since the audience must be 25 feet away from the stage, the first few rows of seats are populated by mannequins wearing wigs and funny T-shirts. But that’s not as striking as the fact that this show usually takes place in the much smaller House of Tape on the casino floor—or the way you’re now greeted by the silent star of the show himself, somewhat out of costume and character.

Since relaunching Tape Face in November with a preshow Q&A session, “We’ve become even more relaxed,” says Sam Wills, creator of the Tape Face show and character. “We do the meet-and-greet thing, but I’m onstage from the moment the audience comes in now, and we just hang out and chat. It’s a chance for me to host and introduce the other characters, and a chance to get a feel for what the audience will be like and to subliminally program a few people to behave in certain ways [that] I hope will make the show go better. Everything serves a purpose.”

Nearby at Harrah’s Cabaret, dancers of X Country, the first Strip casino show to return to action last year, perform Thursday through Sunday (with two shows Fridays and Saturdays) while wearing transparent masks and can’t mingle with their audience the way they used to. As capacity restrictions have fluctuated since the fall, X Country has consistently sold as many tickets as has been allowed, leading to the recent return of its sister show X Burlesque at the Flamingo.

With only a few Vegas productions soldiering on these days while audiences are limited to just 50 people, it’s rare to find a casino with two shows ongoing. The Flamingo has X Burlesque in Bugsy’s Cabaret and Piff the Magic Dragon in its larger showroom.

But Harrah’s—the Caesars Entertainment property originally opened as Holiday Casino in 1973 before it expanded and changed names in 1992—was hosting multiple headliners and shows before COVID-19 shut down the Strip last year, including Menopause the Musical, The Mac King Comedy Show and the reformed Righteous Brothers act featuring Bill Medley with Bucky Heard.

During the pandemic, live music at Harrah’s has taken place on and off, depending on visitation at the popular Piano Bar just inside the casino’s southern Strip entrance and at the nearby outdoor Carnaval Court. The Bronx Wanderers, the family band and rock ’n’ roll tribute act that moved into Harrah’s Showroom mere months before the shutdown, performed at Carnaval Court on Fridays until a few weeks ago.

“It was just me and my dad, two guitars and a tip bucket,” laughs bandleader Vinny “Vin A” Adinolfi III. “We put the other [band] tracks on computer and just made it work. You’ve got to work with the budget of the day. But when the volume went down, the bar had to close. We’re hoping to get back to it for Super Bowl weekend.”

Occasionally, the pared-down Bronx Wanderers were joined by a new Vegas supergroup called Original Chaos, comprising Tenors of Rock singer Dai Richards, Atomic Saloon Show performer Colin Cahill, Tenors and Rock of Ages guitarists Chris Cicchino and drummer Tim Sorbs.

“It’s tough when you have all these hotels at, like, 13% capacity when normally we would have had CES here and we would have been rocking, [but] I get it.” Adinolfi says. “The cool thing is, Caesars has our backs and is trying to get us work wherever it can.”

He says the band was thriving after relocating its show from the Linq to the better-equipped and more classically designed Harrah’s Showroom. With all those shows still scheduled to return to their various stages when that’s possible—plus the addition of Donny Osmond’s new solo residency in that same showroom in August—the often-overlooked center-Strip resort looks well-positioned to continue its entertainment tradition.