Genre Revue Location Bally's Las Vegas | Show type Resident show Producer Donn Arden | |
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Date of premiere 31 July 1981 (1981-07-31) Costume designers Bob Mackie and Pete Menefee | ||
Jubilee! was a long-running Las Vegas Strip-based spectacular revue. It opened on July 31, 1981 at an initial cost of 10 million dollars and was originally produced by Donn Arden. 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. Many of the show's sets date back to the original production and include the sinking of the Titanic and the bull used in Samson and Delilah. The bull is 27 feet tall and collapses down to 13 feet after it has been destroyed. The bull is the heaviest single piece of scenery in the show weighing 3 tons. It takes 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 are further categorized as "short" and "tall" dancers. A "short" dancer is a female dancer between 5'8" and 5'9" and a "tall" female dancer is between 5'10" and 6'2." One may be surprised at how tall the dancers are because of the proportions of the stage, which is three and a half stories high, giving the illusion that the performers are smaller in relationship to the stage.
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The show ended its 35-year run on February 11, 2016 as the last showgirl show in Las Vegas.