The Bronx is up, the Battery’s down, and on the Las Vegas Strip there’s a hotel and casino that pays homage with a replicated skyline and a world-renowned roller coaster winding through it in tribute to Coney Island. The energy of Manhattan and surrounding boroughs, however, is best captured within New York-New York at Cirque du Soleil’s Mad Apple, a next-level variety show aimed at adults.
This Mad Apple opens 30 minutes before the show begins so audience members can mix and mingle with cast members at bars—one along the front of the stage, one onstage for VIPs—that create a nightclub atmosphere while serving as part of the set design. The cushion of time is a boon for Vegas visitors who habitually have trouble estimating time between finishing dinner and showtimes.
“Don’t stop somewhere else,” says Mad Apple company manager Karin “Kitty” Tomcik. “Come to the show. We’ve got the bars open. You can enjoy a drink here and don’t have to rush to your space.”
Nightclubs in New York don’t usually provide mixed drinks in souvenir flasks or span eras in music from Gershwin to Lady Gaga. Under the auspices of music director Xharlie Black, live music is a prime factor in Mad Apple’s formula. From the singers lifting their voices to Earth, Wind & Fire’s “Boogie Wonderland” and McFadden & Whitehead’s “Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now” to the funky drumming and bandleader JF Blais playing the iconic clarinet opening to “Rhapsody in Blue,” the sounds of the show place patrons in a New York state of mind.
While dancing and general enthusiasm are not mandatory, they are encouraged and enhance Mad Apple, so don’t hesitate to heed the call to get up and dance. And you don’t have to fear becoming a target for boundary-testing humor as emcees make the rounds; Mad Apple’s comedians are expert at singling out people who won’t have anxiety meltdowns if asked where they hail from. Once the fourth wall is broken and a suitable victim found, the reason the show is for mature audiences becomes apparent.
While Mad Apple favors risqué over raunchy, there’s good reason for requiring guests to be 18 and up. “It’s meant for adult audiences,” says Tomcik. “We have the bar scene, the club scene. Cirque offers a lot of shows if you have a family, but Mad Apple is more of a party vibe. … We’re not trying to be offensive. We’re not trying to be crude.”
Mad Apple also has a host of acts from basketball acrobats to hand balancers to hair-raising aerialists. The feats of agility, strength and coordination are as intriguing and suspenseful to modern audiences as old-school vaudeville was to New Yorkers of earlier ages. Times change, but appetites for being dazzled by superhuman stunts and mastery of body movement, such as the rubbery contortions of Captain Frodo who joins the cast for a stretch beginning in May, remain the same.
New York-New York, 18+, 866.606.7111. newyorknewyork.mgmresorts.com
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