Jubilee! Explained

Jubilee!
Genre:	Revue
Type:	Resident show
Location:	originally at the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino, which later became Horseshoe Las Vegas
Creatortitle1:	Producer
Creatorname1:	Donn Arden
Creatortitle2:	Costume designer
Creatorname2:	Bob Mackie
Creatortitle3:	Costume designer
Creatorname3:	Pete Menefee
Website:	http://www.ballyslasvegas.com/shows/jubilee.html

Jubilee! was a Las Vegas Strip-based spectacular revue.^[1] It opened on July 31, 1981 at an initial cost of 10 million dollars and was originally produced by Donn Arden.^[2] Donn Arden set the standard for all the spectacular Las Vegas shows that celebrated female beauty, in combination with a demand for only the best; in costumes, set, and talent. When it closed in 2016, this resident show at Bally's Las Vegas was the longest-running production show in Las Vegas. The Jubilee! showgirls were an icon of old Vegas. The show used costumes designed by Bob Mackie and Pete Menefee. UNLV Special Collections houses many of the original costume design drawings which can be accessed online through the Showgirls collection from UNLV Digital Collections.^[2] Many of the show's sets dated back to the original production and include the sinking of the Titanic and the bull used in Samson and Delilah. The bull was 27 feet (8 m) tall and collapses down to 13 feet (4 m) after it has been destroyed. The bull was the heaviest single piece of scenery in the show weighing 3 tons (2700 kg). It took 9 stagehands to move it from one position to another. Jubilee!'s longest serving principal dancer from the opening night until her departure 23 years later was Linda Green. The final closing cast consisted of 3 female singers, 3 male singers, 18 male dancers, 23 topless dancers, and 19 female dancers. Within the female covered and topless dancers, they were further categorized as "short" and "tall" dancers. A "short" dancer is a female dancer between 5 ft 8 in (173 cm) and 5 ft 9 in (175 cm) and a "tall" female dancer is between 5 ft 10 in (178 cm) and 6 ft 2 in (188 cm). One may have been surprised at how tall the dancers were because of the proportions of the stage, which was three and a half stories high, giving the illusion that the performers are smaller in relationship to the stage.

The show ended its 35-year run on February 11, 2016.^[3] ^[4] ^[5]

Creators

Donn Arden - Producer
Fluff LeCoque - Associate producer
Michael Pratt - Assistant company manager
Winston Hemsley - Choreographer
Rich Rizzo - Choreographer
Pete Menefee - Designer
Bob Mackie - Designer

Notable dancers

Tiffany Coyne, model^[6]
Greta Jones, Full Show Swing
Janet Ford Spelman, Principle Dancer, Tropicana Casino Legends Hall of Fame Inductee
Kaleigh Jones, Featured Dancer
Michael Forsch, Line 3 Captain
Nathaniel Burich, Full Show Swing
Sabina Kelley, Best Ink, Tattooed SuperModel, 1st Heavily Tattooed Dancer to Headline a show on the Vegas Strip
Jessica Lane, Featured Dancer (Dolly Sister)
Lisa Louise Wilson, Principle Singer, Singer Line Captain and Female Singer Swing (Fired)

Acts

Act 1 Showtime! Putting It into the Right Vernacular
Act 2 A Specialty Act that varied over the years, toward the end was a hand balancing act
Act 3 Samson and Delilah Tonight, a Lesson from Ancient History^[7]
Act 4 Another Specialty Act that varied over the years, sometimes a magic act, towards the end was a gaucho act
Act 5 Titanic Away We Go on the Mighty "Unsinkable" Ocean Liner
Act 6 Another Specialty Act, towards the end was an aerial act
Act 7 The Finale A Tribute to Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers

Former staff at time of closing

Damian Costa - Entertainment Director
Diane Palm - Company manager
Suzanne Swanson - Assistant company manager
Darrell Clulow - Technical director
Alicia Morse - Stage manager
Amy Schrage - Assistant Stage manager
Donna London - Wardrobe manager
Gene Lubas - Show Manager
Ryan Rappaport - Entertainment Manager
Daniel Salas - Showroom Manager
Carol Beeman - Production assistant
Ken Billington - Lighting Designer

Technical/show information

At its closing date Jubilee! features a cast of 66 showgirls and show boys. When it first opened the cast had over 100 performers in it.
The theater seated 1,033 people in a combination of theater style seats, swivel chairs, tables and booths.
The show was topless, for 18 and over
There were 75 stagehands working on the show.
The total width of the stage wall to wall was 190 feet (58 m).
All of the dressing rooms were in the basement, 2 flights of stairs below the stage, making for some dancers to do over 1,700 stairs a night.
The heaviest set piece lifted by a motor weighed over 6,000 pounds (2,700 kg) and the heaviest set piece of scenery lifted and lowered by the crew weighed 4,000 pounds (1,800 kg).
The sinking effect of the Titanic was achieved by a combination of the ship and the stage moving at the same time, creating a singular illusion.
Over 1,000 costumes were designed for Jubilee! By Pete Menefee and Bob Mackie.
The feathered headdresses worn by the showgirls weighed up to 35 pounds (15 kg).
There were between 20 and 2,000 feathers on a single costume.
Delilah's crown was the largest jeweled headpiece in the show. The crown was 2 feet (60 cm) tall and is covered with 20 pounds (10 kg) of rhinestones.
The costumes worn in the Grand Jewel Box Finale tribute to Florenz Ziegfeld, was designed by Bob Mackie. There were 36 individual designs, each based on the jewel tones of amethyst, sapphire, emerald, and ruby.^[8]

Legacy

Screenwriter Kate Gersten visited the Jubilee! show before it concluded and was inspired to write a play about the dancers in a similar Las Vegas show's closing. That unproduced play became the basis for the screenplay she wrote for The Last Showgirl, starring Pamela Anderson as a Las Vegas showgirl near the end of her career at the closing of a long-running show.^[9]

Notes and References

News: Bell . Joseph N. . Donn Arden's Art: Beauty, Disasters Wrapped in Extravagance . 10 November 2024 . Los Angeles Times . 15 July 1988 . Donn Arden...was there, sleeping in a suite on the 10th floor when the fire broke out early in the morning of Nov. 20, 1980...Margaret Kelly....
Web site: UNLV Libraries. Jubilee!. Showgirls. UNLV Libraries Digital Collections. 10 September 2012. https://web.archive.org/web/20120730201804/http://digital.library.unlv.edu/collections/showgirls/jubilee. 30 July 2012. dead.
Web site: End of an era: 34-year-old 'Jubilee' concludes — what's next?. 11 February 2016. lasvegassun.com. 23 June 2017.
Web site: 'Jubilee' show at Bally's to close after 34-year run. 12 December 2015. lasvegassun.com. 23 June 2017.
Web site: Curtain coming down on 'Jubilee!'--Las Vegas' long-running showgirl revue. 14 December 2015. 23 June 2017. LA Times.
Web site: Tiffany Coyne the real deal . Wright . Becky . Hers . Standard-Examiner . Utah . https://web.archive.org/web/20120114152537/http://www.hersutah.com/story/tiffany-coyne-real-deal . 2012-01-14 . dead . 16 October 2013.
News: Moonlighting Vegas Cop Takes It Off Onstage. Liann Hanson. 14 November 2010. NPR.org. 23 June 2017.
Book: Merrill, Jane . The showgirl costume an illustrated history . McFarland . 2018 . 978-1-4766-7174-1 . 224 . 1240159008.
Coppola . Gia . Gia Coppola . Anderson . Pamela . Pamela Anderson . Gersten . Kate . Shipka . Kiernan . Kiernan Shipka . Song . Brenda . Brenda Song . Pamela Anderson's Role Of A Lifetime In 'The Last Showgirl' . September 7, 2024 . . .