One of the hottest new shows on the Las Vegas Strip has reopened in its very unique home at The Grand Canal Shoppes, Spiegelworld’s Atomic Saloon Show, and the racy, comedic variety show is overseen by the saloon’s charmingly unstable proprietor, Boozy Skunkton. She puts the second “wild” in the Wild, Wild West. The one-of-a-kind character was co-created and is played by Petra Massey, a British-born artist and comedian who made her Vegas debut in Zumanity in 2003. There’s no overstating the excitement Massey feels about returning to live performances again, and she took a break from her busy stage schedule to talk all about it.

How did it feel to finally return this month?

I felt like a bottle being uncorked. I get adrenaline rushes anyway when I do new material and new shows, but the rush I got after 13 months of not doing any shows or any kind of performance, it really hit me. It was amazing. I felt like I was on a hundred-meter sprint as soon as I came out and yelled, “Welcome to the Atomic Saloon!” I’m just so excited to be back onstage and I feel so privileged and so lucky.

This show was only up and running for a few months before the pandemic put a pause on everything, so it must have been devastating to have that momentum halted.

We opened at Edinburgh (Festival Fringe in Scotland) and had a month at that festival and it was a massive hit there, which is quite difficult to do. Then we came and opened (in Vegas) and hit the ground running—then it was ripped from us. It was like a freeze frame. Everything stopped. And we didn’t have much of a foundation to cling onto, so we all clung onto each other. The artist community in Las Vegas really came together, and Spiegelworld was very supportive.

This is not your first time playing Vegas. You were part of the opening cast of Zumanity. How long did that experience last?

We were there for two years with my company SpyMonkey. Zumanity sadly was closed but I still have some buddies who are still here, and some of the Zumanity crew came to see reopening night of Atomic Saloon Show. Seeing them up there and knowing the journey we’ve been on together, I was welling up with emotion anyway, but that nearly tipped me over. It was wonderful. My (experience) with that show felt kind of pioneering because it was a very different show for Cirque du Soleil, and my company went from playing these small black box theaters to suddenly launched into this massive, beautiful, bespoke theater, and working with these exotic, talented beauties from around the world. We were very happy there.

Are there similarities between working on Zumanity and Atomic Saloon Show?

At SpyMonkey, we are very edgy clowns. So when we were doing it, it really was something else for the Vegas audience. Cut to when (Spiegelworld) opened Absinthe, we saw that and thought, boom, this is happening. The Vegas audience is now ready. I suppose in some ways there were all sorts of shows that paved the way for that step to happen.

What was it like creating the character of Boozy Skunkton?

It’s been an interesting journey and I’m still finding it, I find things every day and I’m always working on it. I’ve really fallen in love with her, but she’s me. When you work in clowning, it’s kind of like the heightened version of yourself. In one sense she’s like a ferocious dog, and in another she’s this vulnerable little piglet who desperately wants to be loved but isn’t quite sure, she doesn’t know how. But she’s an ongoing, longstanding love affair for me and I do enjoy playing her every day. We’re doing a lot of shows now, 10 shows a week, and it feels really good.

The Grand Canal Shoppes at The Venetian & The Palazzo, 18+, 702.414.9000

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