4/4/2019
Education and Outreach / Family Programming
Sarah Quinn won’t soon forget the reactions of her clients with disabilities during a recent visit from illusionist Kevin Spencer at Opportunity Village. That’s because Spencer, a world-renowned artist and educator The Smith Center brought to Las Vegas in March, provided more than just magic tricks.
4/2/2019
Performances and Artists
Singer-songwriter Michael Grimm fielded performance opportunities across the U.S. after winning season five of hit NBC show “America’s Got Talent.” But there’s just one place where Grimm wants to live and perform now: Las Vegas. And The Smith Center tops his list of favorite venues, he says.
3/27/2019
Supporting the Arts
Ask Daniel Neel about his favorite performance at The Smith Center, and he responds, “the most impressive performance at The Smith Center came before it opened.” He refers to how community visionaries across Southern Nevada banded together to successfully raise $470 million to build their dream.
3/22/2019
Discovering The Smith Center
Las Vegas just renamed a stretch of Clark Avenue — the portion connecting The Smith Center to the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health — after the late Robin Leach, widely beloved for his roles as an entertainment writer with the Las Vegas Review-Journal and a passionate supporter of the performing arts in Southern Nevada.
3/20/2019
Performances and Artists
Backed by talented young vocalists on his new tour, showcasing many of the band’s hits like “Working My Way Back to You,” “Silence is Golden” and more, the 84-year-old Valli says he had been thrilled from the start at the concept of bringing the story to Broadway of how he and his bandmates rose from hard-knock lives in New Jersey to garnering an international following.
3/7/2019
Education and Outreach
When the curtain opened on “The Lion King” at Richard J. Rundle Elementary in February, teacher Kaylene Henderson admits the Las Vegas educators could barely recognize their own students performing complex choreography, belting musical numbers and delivering memorized lines with gusto.
3/7/2019
Supporting the Arts
When Stacey Wedding founded the annual Nevada’s Big Give, she had one goal in mind: To make charitable giving easy and accessible for all. “The whole point is to come together as a statewide community and show that we, the residents of Nevada, care about our communities and the causes that are important to us,” says Wedding, also founder and CEO of Professionals in Philanthropy.
2/27/2019
Broadway Las Vegas / Performances and Artists
Season ticket holders are not only guaranteed tickets to a year’s worth of shows, but they will also enjoy special benefits such as 20-percent savings on non-Broadway shows, priority access for additional tickets and seat upgrades, and more. Intrigued? Then check out what Smith Center employees have to say about the 2019-2020 season shows.
2/26/2019
Performances and Artists
Across her glittering Broadway, film and television career, three-time Tony winner Bernadette Peters knows just what has set her apart: her unrivaled delivery of sharp, sassy humor and her fiery, powerhouse vocals. Nothing allows her talents to shine brightest, she insists, as much as concert performances.
2/19/2019
Community Impact
By: Dr. Richard McGee, Conductor, Musician and Professor of Fine Arts at College of Southern Nevada. I moved to Las Vegas in 1981 because I thought I could work here as a performing trombonist. The reputation of the town was, at that time, such that if you played well enough, you could find work in the lounges and showrooms of the Strip. Now, it’s not that I needed work – I had a great job as a high school band director in the Denver area, but I wanted to use my trombone skills for more than the occasional gig.