7/16/2021
Education and Outreach
The house lights in Reynolds Hall at The Smith Center remained dark as Myron Martin crossed the stage on July 14.
Martin — Smith Center president and CEO — placed his hand on the ghost light, the traditional single-bulb light left on stage in an empty theater.
“It’s been 482 days that this stage has been dark,” Martin said to the crowd of reporters gathered on stage. “Today we get to relight our theater, and I get to say to our lighting department for the first time in 482 days: here’s our cue, light the house.”
With his words, the lights throughout the 2,050-seat theater turned on, rousing applause from the crowd.
The symbolic gesture tied into two significant announcements for the day.
First, Martin shared that The Smith Center would launch the 50-city national tour of all-new musical “An Officer and A Gentleman,” running Oct. 26 to 31.
“This brand-new show that’s heading to Broadway is going to come here first,” Martin said. “At (the show’s) opening night at The Smith Center, we will represent the world premiere of ‘An Officer and A Gentleman.’ That makes us so happy.”
On top of this, 40 new shows went on sale at The Smith Center in July, Martin announced, including leading Broadway musicals, legendary headliners and international dance companies.
“We can’t wait to welcome the public back to The Smith Center,” Martin said.
Sneak Peek of All-New Musical
The special media event included presentations by the creative team for “An Officer and A Gentleman,” as well as performances by the show’s cast members who hail from broad theater and television careers.
Launching the production’s tour at The Smith Center, which has presented so many top Broadway productions, “feels like coming home,” said producer Stephen Gabriel.
The creative team initially felt “daunted” in adapting this iconic, Oscar-winning film about a Naval officer candidate overcoming adversity, added choreographer Patricia Wilcox.
Doing so required reframing the portrayal of women and race through a modern lens, she noted.
“Of course the world has changed since 1982, and some of the storylines that were acceptable back then had to be rethought,” Wilcox said. “But the basic romance between a brash loner looking to improve his lot in life by becoming a Naval officer and a smart girl trapped in a dead-end town is still a story people want to see — here at the beautiful Smith Center, and all around the country.”
This musical comes packed with rock and pop staples almost entirely from the 1980s, said Music Supervisor Dan Lipton, all carefully curated and arranged to support the powerful storyline.
“The result is a score that is very fun, because it’s the ‘80s, but we also have a lot of musical and lyrical meat,” Lipton said. “Jukebox musicals work best when the actors really have something to dig into.”
The show’s hit songs include “Renegade” by Styx, “Higher Love” by Steve Winwood, “Lost in Your Eyes” by Debbie Gibson, “Venus” by Bananarama, “Love Is a Battlefield” by Pat Benatar, as well as beloved songs by Rick Springfield, Corey Hart, Wilson Phillips and Melissa Ethridge.
Naturally, the show includes No. 1 hit “Up Where We Belong” from the film, Lipton said, hailing it as “one of the biggest hits of all time.”
The show’s five costars performed shortened versions of a handful of the production’s melodies, each showcasing the performers’ powerhouse vocals.
“We’ve been kind of astonished how well these songs worked in our story,” Lipton said. “It almost seems like a lot were written for our show.”
40 Shows Now On Sale
Southern Nevadans can also look forward to many more music, theater and dance productions, as The Smith Center now has tickets on sale for roughly 40 shows.
These include single tickets on sale for select shows from the center’s 2021-2022 Broadway Las Vegas® Series, including “CATS,” “An Officer and a Gentleman” and “A Christmas Carol.”
The Tony Award-winning hit comedy and one of the longest-running plays in Broadway history “The Play That Goes Wrong” will also return to The Smith Center November 9-14.
Additional shows on sale include Broadway icons such as Kristin Chenoweth and Patti Lupone; music legends such as Paul Anka and Johnny Mathis; acclaimed jazz performers such as Wynton Marsalis and Boney James; internationally renowned dance groups such as Ballet Folklorico and Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo; and notable speakers such as Neil deGrasse Tyson and Garrison Keillor.
To learn more and buy tickets, click here.