March 19, 2009 *
THE STRIP SENSE
Catch The Rising Stars: Strip’s Broadway performers offer unique
opportunities for Vegas locals
By STEVE FRIESS
Erich Bergen has one of those clean-cut young faces that make
you want to pinch his cheeks and mess up his hair. He’s all
wide-set doe eyes and perfect manners and collared shirts, albeit
in various stages of wrinkled, and there’s this straitlaced,
innocent element that makes the kid a natural to portray the
square who wrote “Sherry” and “Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You.”
That’s why I’m a little startled when I sit in the empty showroom
at the Liberace Museum during a rehearsal last week for Bergen’s
two-nights-only benefit concert and the stuff that’s streaming
out of his mouth is naughtiness and double entendres of the
most delightfully vile manner.
I won’t give it away, exactly, because Bergen asked me not
to, but the “Jersey Boys” star himself is wondering if what
he’s just sung will “make everyone walk right out, it’s so disgusting.”
God, I hope not. If they did, they’d miss an up-close-and-personal
opportunity – at a bargain basement price! -- to spend some
time with a talent so impressive, so refreshing that he can’t
possibly be long for the obscurity of a Las Vegas Strip musical
cast.
Star power is something that’s very difficult to explain or
describe and it is not that Bergen is the best singer, the best
dancer, the best actor or the best-looking performer in this
city. But what Bergen does have is a youthful and affable presence,
an ability to play with audience expectations of him, a willingness
to take risks and a confidence that does not – at least yet
-- come across as arrogance. And he has an eagerness to perform
and crowd-please this city ought to appreciate and take advantage
of for however long we have him here.
Consider for a moment the fact that Bergen is even doing these
two headlining shows on March 25 and April 8. He doesn’t have
to. He’s the lead of a major production, makes good money. His
time off could be spent resting the desert-damaging vocal chords
and shuttling to Los Angeles or New York for auditions. And
certainly, Bergen does some of that.
But the 23-year-old, who grew up in the Chelsea neighborhood
of Manhattan and has been performing since he was a tween in
TV commercials and the like, decided he wanted to give something
back to a local arts and music scene that rescued him from a
dark chapter. After his arrival last year when “Jersey Boys”
debuted, Bergen fell into a funk brought on by a harsh breakup,
the death of a castmate and, of course, finding himself profoundly
lonely in Las Vegas. “I’m not going to lie, I was definitely
freaked out a little bit,” he says of his first months here.
“I was definitely thrown off.”
It didn’t take him too long, though, to discover the Composers
Showcase, a monthly concert series at the Liberace Museum organized
by Keith Thompson, musical director for “The Producers,” “Hairspray”
and now “Jersey Boys” in Vegas. Dozens of fellow Strip performers,
mostly from Broadway productions, sing or play their original
songs; the public pays a piddling $5. (See TheComposersShowcase.Com
for schedule.)
Bergen became a regular and soon decided he wanted to do a
benefit of his own. Sure, it’s nice to raise money for the Liberace
Foundation, which provides scholarships to music students, but
he also saw it as a chance to do something unscripted and daring.
In his normal gig, of course, there’s no room for improvisation.
In “Erich Bergen Live at the Liberace Cabaret,” he gets to bust
away from “Big Girls Don’t Cry” and dive into both his own songs
as well as a jazz-arranged medley of “Like A Virgin,” “Billie
Jean” and other modern pop standards.
“This concert is an attempt to have some fun on stage that
isn't guided by what can and can't be said,” Bergen says. “The
comedy is spur of the moment, nothing that I say is planned.
The music is the music I am passionate about.”
There is a reason I’m writing about this on this particular
week. It isn’t just that I expect great things from Bergen and
feel a kinship to him because just a couple of years ago he
was a lowly podcaster with a Broadway-themed celebrity-interview
show called “Green Room Radio” that is still available on iTunes.
(And don’t worry, I’ve no intention of setting down my “The
Strip” mike to have a go at puppet ventriloquism any time soon.)
No, I write about this because it occurs to me that many are
wringing their hands over what a lousy arts town Las Vegas is
now that, as of this month, Southern Nevada became the largest
metropolitan area in the nation to not offer a real public,
non-profit art museum.
That sucks, to be sure, but we do have arts here of a different
sort. Almost no other American city can boast singers and actors
of world-class caliber living here and seeking out other avenues
to entertain us beyond their normal jobs. Several of those who
appear in Strip musicals go on to remarkable stardom, the most
significant example being ex- “Phantom” star Sierra Boggess
recently opening on Broadway as Ariel in “The Little Mermaid.”
We get these kids in formative periods of their careers, before
they’re too big and important and wealthy to be bothered playing
in a small local joint for free.
Indeed, it won’t be but a few years before Erich Bergen is
a serious threat on Broadway, in the movies or on TV. Get over
to the Liberace Museum on March 25 or April 8 at 7 p.m., then.
It’ll cost you $15 and later on you can say you knew him when.
You’re welcome.
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