Over 45 years the Folies Bergere at the Tropicana Resort and Casino in Las Vegas has been entertaining audiences with flash, flesh, dance, and comedy — the longest running stage performance in town and in the United States.

The riveting center stage and topless revue captivates with boundless energy, but there is also a family early show with the tops up on many days of the week.

Folies Bergere (Fall Lees Burr  j) come from Paris, France, and it has had an even longer run there than in Vegas.  The show remained opened during World War II, probably by demand from the Nazi.

I saw both the family version and the more risqué classical version, and both performances at the Tiffany Theatre were filled with elaborate headdresses, sparkling costumes, and well executed dance maneuvers, acrobats, exciting specialty acts, and a variety of musical styles.

The main theme is women through the ages, from the Belle Époque era to present day pop and rock.  The show celebrated the beauty of women from every era, including dancing the Charleston from the Roaring Twenties, to the Swing in the post war '40s, to pop rock psychedelia in the ‘60s, to modern tecno rock.

During a brief intermission, comedian, juggler, and magician, Michael Holly uses his quick wit to impress, amuse, and delight the audience.  He could easily have his own main stage act. He has been voted best specialty act in Las Vegas by Casino Player magazine and he has opened for such headliners as Dana Carvey and David Spade. He recently completed a successful year performing his one-man show, “The Michael Holly Off the Wall Comedy Hour.”

The revue saw a complete show makeover in 2004 where Jerry Jackson, director, choreographer, and designer, put his talents to work and added a sexy new 1940s number, along with other enhancements to the current version of the show.

Folies Bergere continues to take audiences on a journey of the evolution of women, beginning in the 1850s into present day, as they reinvent themselves in the true fashion of the femme fatale.

The newest addition to the show is a tribute to the Tropicana and its heritage, taking audiences back to “Club Tropicana” in the 1940s. The scene is a sparkling night in Cuba complete with lighted palm trees edged in silvery-turquoise and silhouetted against a sky blue chiffon curtain with stars twinkling in the background.

Lead male singer, Dan O’Brien opens the number accompanied by female dancers singing “Jumpin’ East of Java”. The women, dressed in bright colored dresses accented with bold black and white stripes, are eventually joined by cigar-smoking men sporting black zoot suits with hats, demonstrating the hot Latin dance style, the mambo.

When researching this era, Jackson discovered the mambo originally hit the Cuban dance scene in 1947 at La Tropicana, the premiere nightclub in Havana, and soon spread to the United States. The mambo combines American Jazz with an Afro-Cuban beat. He says, “The overall flavor of the dance is contained in the translation of the word mambo which means ‘shake it’ or ‘say it’.  The Folies Bergere dancers do a fantastic job demonstrating the fancy footwork and Latin hip movement involved in the mambo.”

“Pin-ups” become the focus of the second segment of the new 1940s scene. The term was coined during the pre-war era when men would tear pictures of pretty girls from magazines and “pin them up” on their lockers.

Lead female singer, Traci Ault.

Dan O’Brien’s résumé is complete with appearances in a variety of production shows. He has traveled the world over performing with the cast of some of history’s best-known productions, such as “South Pacific”, “The Fantasticks”, and “Guys and Dolls”. His performing arts background focuses mainly on improv, sketch comedy, and musical theatre.

O’Brien’s recently starred in a Greg Thompson production that took place in Oregon. He has also starred in the Los Angeles revival of “Hair” with Steven Weber (formerly of the sitcom Wings) and Marisa Jaret-Winoker (who is currently receiving notoriety as Tracy Turnblad in the Broadway production of “Hairspray”).

History of Folies Bergere:

It’s the Montmartre district of Paris in the middle of the nineteenth century. Sophistication and elegance are setting Parisian fashion. Historians referred to it as France’s Golden Years. The year is 1869, and tonight is the opening of Paris’ first Music Hall, the glamorous Folies Bergere Theatre.

A new trend and style were introduced that evening, both in large-scale production revues and entertainment pastimes. It became chic to be seen at the Folies Bergere, so aristocrats and royal families alike came from all over the European continent to claim there coveted seats at the Folies.

The dazzling display of color and motion that painted the Folies stage nightly, not to mention the beautiful girls, the dancing, the acrobatics, lights, costumes and scenery became the toast of Paris.

The Folies Bergere was named for the nearby Rue Bergere, a district in Paris, which in turn, is a corruption of ‘Bergier,’ the name of a master dyer who once had his business there. “Folies” for many years was used to describe a piece of land where soft grass and lush thickets favored the clandestine meetings of romantic couples. The word later came to denote public places where Parisians of the 18th century could dance, drink, and watch open-air entertainment.

Dancing and drinking were only the beginning for patrons who frequented the Folies Theatre in Paris. The Folies became the center of world attention as an entertainment spot for fostering new, upcoming stars. Variety acts and talented young artisans from around the world, names like Maurice Chevalier, Will Rogers, Josephine Baker, the Marx Brothers, Charlie Chaplin, Colette, and Fernandel all made their claim to fame under the glittering marquee of the Folies.

The show’s reputation, however, would never be the same after the first nude showgirl appeared on the Folies stage in 1918. For, on that night, a devastating hush fell over the audience, followed by a great sigh of admiration. A naughty new chapter had begun in the history of the Folies Bergere.

As the Folies Bergere name and reputation quickly grew, the demand for the revue made its way throughout France and all of Europe. Soon, the show had developed a touring company and began performing to standing-room-only crowds around the world. In fact, the Folies Bergere became known today as the most spectacular show in stage revues!

The Folies Arrive At The Tropicana

America got its first taste of the Folies Bergere on December 24, 1959. The most appropriate site . . .  the elegant Tropicana Resort & Casino in Las Vegas. Lou Walters, then entertainment director of the Tropicana (and father to news correspondent Barbara Walters), brought the famed French revue direct from Paris to the Las Vegas Strip and the hotel’s Fountain Theatre.

The spectacular stage production proved to be an immediate success. The large showroom and facilities allowed the Tropicana to stage the Folies Bergere in a fashion never before dreamed possible. The cast included both French and American talent and soon began yielding stars of its own, just like its Parisian counterpart.

Singing star Bobbie Gentry made her Las Vegas debut at age 17 as a Folies showgirl, along with French singer (and former wife of Andy Williams), Claudine Longet. Felicia Atkins became the Tropicana and Las Vegas’ premier showgirl and graced the centerfold pages of Playboy magazine as well as a multitude of Las Vegas posters and special TV appearances. The Tropicana Hotel became known as the “Home of the Most Beautiful Women in the World”.

In 1975, the Folies Bergere was moved from the Fountain Theatre, where the show had run for 16 years, into the new and expansive 950-seat Tiffany Theatre. At that time, the show became an original American production. More spectacular than ever before, and produced solely for the Tropicana, it was conceived, directed, and choreographed by Jerry Jackson, who has held this position until the present day.

The show, however, still maintains that historical Folies name and is licensed through special arrangement with the original Folies Bergere of Paris.

The Can Can finale.

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