After a year onstage at Bally’s in the recently renamed Magic Attic theater, the charming French entertainer Xavier Mortimer is happily settling into his equally charming show, Xavier Mortimer’s Magical Dream. After becoming the first performer from a Vegas Cirque du Soleil show to open his own headlining production in 2016 (at Planet Hollywood Resort), Mortimer has found his rhythm and recently passed the 1,000-show mark. I took time with Mortimer to talk about his accomplishments and unique style.

Congratulations on performing your 1,000th show.

Thanks! It’s actually the third time I’ve reached 1,000 shows. When I started with Cirque du Soleil in Michael Jackson ONE, I think I did more than 1,200 shows there, and I also created a show in France called Shadow Orchestra that’s built on my current piece where I dance with my shadow. It was a mime and magic show and it toured around the world, and I did just over 1,000 shows.

That’s three times as amazing. What was it like to celebrate this landmark with so many entertainers in the audience?

It’s a great feeling. I landed this show three and a half years ago and had no idea I would make it to a certain amount of months or shows. There was no expectation. It was a lot of work. This is never something that happens out of the blue. But I didn’t know I would be supported by the Vegas community this way.

Your show is a bit different from other magic-based shows because there’s a real story to it and it feels very personal. Did you start with the story or build that around the illusions?

It’s half and half. I had all these acts I had been performing since Cirque du Soleil or in my old one-man show, so I took all the material together and chose the ones that fit the theme of this dream. It’s good to have a dream because you can go anywhere you want. The difficult part was finding or creating the transitions and we’ve changed them so much. It took more than a year to find the pace and make sense of it all.

You play some music in the show but people might not know you compose most of your own. How long have you been playing and writing music?

The writing came a little later but I’ve been playing since I was 6. I started my career as a musician. My first real job was as a musician in a theater company, a clarinetist. I started to write my own music for my act instead of always borrowing commercial music, because why not? It was awful in the beginning but I started working with a friend who still helps me compose a lot. I have the idea of the pace and the melody, where I want the music to go as a form of storytelling, and he puts some chords on it and we go back and forth.

You’ll perform at Bally’s all year, but what else is in the works?

A lot. I’ll be hitting the road a little, but in 2021 I’m going to really start touring America, which is great. I’ll do the first part this year but really getting around to different states next year, and I’m very happy about that.