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Jubilee!’ history: Nevada State Museum gets another Vegas treasure

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Nevada State Museum just received two Jubilee! costume bibles form the production’s 1981 launch.

In February, the Nevada State Museum scored the mother lode when the Tropicana handed over its entire Folies Bergere costume collection—can-can dresses, headpieces, jeweled G-strings, complete outfits and even the thread used to stitch them together. It was a coup, a signature collection marking nearly five decades of Vegas show history from a revue outlasted only by Donn Arden’s Jubilee! Now the sequined gods have returned—this time with two Jubilee! wardrobe bibles from the launch of the production in 1981, containing all the sketches and notations made by Bob Mackie and Pete Menefee.

The books came courtesy of costume designer Diana Eden (Mackie’s former assistant), who came here to mount the original show, only to see much of it destroyed in a fire at the old MGM Grand (now Bally’s). Eden rescued the books, considered invaluable for their information, and has been holding onto them. Complete with sketches, notations, cast lists and textile swatches, they’re another piece of the story, another key artifact of an era that helped define Las Vegas.

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