Showgirl Video, the last peep show in Las Vegas, closed in 2019 to make way for a cannabis dispensary. But before it shuttered, comedian and director Grace Lusk made a pilgrimage to the now-defunct Las Vegas Boulevard smut shop to witness a piece of performance history.
“It left me mentally scarred, but in a really good way,” says Lusk, who performs in Spiegelworld’s Opium. “The intimacy of it—being crowded in this little booth with a friend … and just feeling like you’re seeing something that you maybe shouldn’t be allowed to see. It’s all very fun.”
When the pandemic paused live entertainment, Lusk’s mind returned to the concept of the peep show. With its enclosed viewing booths and walled separation between audience and performer, the peep show was naturally socially distanced. She searched for discarded sets from old peep shows, came up empty-handed and endeavored to rebuild the genre, literally.
Lusk partnered with Majestic Repertory Theatre’s Troy Heard, who has his own memories of discovering a New York City peep show while on a high school trip. “I completely forgot about the spectacle [of watching a Broadway show],” Heard recalls, “because that spectacle was really life-altering.”
Together, Lusk and Heard created Hot Trash, a throwback Times Square peep show. The sexy cabaret variety show opened in May and is being extended through June due to popular demand. The COVID-19-safe theater-in-the-round set has the feel of an underground punk bar crossed with an MMA octagon. Echoing Hot Trash’s hardcore ancestors, plexiglass windows separate the performers from the audience, who sit in four-person private boxes.
Heard says Hot Trash’s rotating cast features some of the “best f*cking talent in the world, not just Vegas—world-class performers from Spiegelworld, from Cirque [du Soleil], from Puppetry of the Penis.”
“There’s just been so much new and so much fresh,” Lusk says of the show, which purposefully offers a safe space for creative risk-taking. Lusk says the show combines vaudeville, burlesque and comedy. She calls it “the most avant-garde that this town has to offer.”
So just how raunchy is Hot Trash? Perhaps it’s not necessary to clarify, but Heard does: “This is not porn. It’s performance art. There is nudity, but it’s theater.”
With weekly lineup changes, it’s impossible to predict exactly what’s in store for the intimate 28-person audience. “As the director of the show, Grace really curates a roller-
coaster ride,” says Heard, who serves as co-producer. “If you’re a fan of shows like Absinthe and Opium, this is the next evolution.”
Variety-show acts have included: an artistic take on hot-dog eating, a sword-swallower, a hilariously sacrilegious puppet show, a comedy-dog act; contemporary dance, singers and a freak show. Hot Trash also features two songs written by Lusk’s friend Sophia Urista.
Lusk hosts the show’s competition format, in which the performers vie for the title of “Reigning Dumpster Fire Supreme.” By tipping dollar bills through the stage’s “glory holes” (Venmo is also available for the cashless), the audience votes on the winner. As show host, Lusk also squeezes in a comedic bit she has been developing during the pandemic. She cleans up after one of the competing acts, and she says it “devolves into this clown piece with a vacuum.”
Both co-producers say their biggest challenge and greatest accomplishment has been putting on a production during the pandemic. Lusk says: “The element of the plexiglass is taking a bad situation and being like, how can we make it art?”
Hot Trash was the answer, and many jumped at the opportunity to participate. “Everybody involved in the entertainment industry has been twiddling their thumbs for a year, so when people found out we were doing something new, they were beyond helpful,” Lusk says.
The show has even attracted other performers, some of whom Lusk hopes to cast in upcoming performances.
“Now that more and more artists are reaching out to me, I don’t know what the next week is gonna bring,” Lusk says of Hot Trash. “It’s just always new, fresh talent with an undercurrent of raunchy, ridiculous peep show.”
Hot Trash Through June 19; showtimes vary. $250 for a private booth seating up to four guests (includes a bottle of champagne) or $50 for individual seats, 21+. Majestic Repertory Theatre, 702-423-6366.
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