‘Absinthe’ at home at Caesars Palace through 2020

The Kats! Bureau at this writing is Starbucks at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, where I am positioned at the center of the first permanent, public art installation of by French artist and photographer Georges Rousse.

To enjoy this work, stand on the colorful circle at the southeast corner of the coffee enclave, and look up. It’s very cool.

A colorful piece of performance art to the north seems bent on becoming permanent, too. “Absinthe” has just signed a contract extension with Caesars Palace to to perform at that hotel for at least two more years. The current deal runs through May 2020, with several “rollover” provisions that ensure it will continue onstage for the foreseeable future.

“We are staying at Caesars Palace, and this really is a relationship between the two Gazes,” Spiegelworld founder and “impresario extraordinaire” Ross Mollison said Tuesday afternoon. “It’s ‘Gaz’ Selesner and Gazillionaire. They worked out a deal over mushroom truffle soup at Guy Savoy restaurant.”

“Gaz” Selesner, in fact, is Caesars Palace President Gary Selesner. An important, and real, official in the show’s development, he helped negotiate the original lease for “Absinthe” to perform in its tented theater on the Roman Plaza starting on April 1, 2011.

The show has been the rare production on the Strip that’s both critically and commercially successful, having just last week expanded its schedule to 14 shows a week, running twice per night without any dark days.

The show’s popularity has led to several suitors from major Strip resorts calling on the show, and even an unsuccessful attempt by Cirque du Soleil to merge with Spiegelworld. “Absinthe” has been shopped to such resorts as Wynn Las Vegas, Tropicana and Venetian/Palazzo over the years.

In summer 2016, it was announced “Absinthe” would relocate to Cosmopolitan as the result of a legal dispute between Spiegelworld and then-production partner Base Entertainment. The two sides had originally argued over their shared lease at Caesars Palace, but settled their crisscrossing lawsuits out of court, with Base agreeing to split from the partnership.

That move allowed “Absinthe” to stay at Caesars, where it is expected to remain even if the hotel redevelops Roman Plaza, a choice piece of property on the Strip just off the hotel’s main entrance.

“If Caesars ever wanted to build 2,000 rooms on that site, we have have the ability to decide to if we want to move the show somewhere else,” Mollison said. “But Caesars might want to move it somewhere else in the hotel, or they might build resident theater for us. But we like where we are and we are doing great.”

The impresario didn’t need to say it, but Gazillionaire, too, is happy.

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