The critics have spoken: John Stagliano’s foray into Vegas dance shows is a critical hit. But is The Fashionistas too high-brow to catch on with one-armed bandit crowd?
Last week The Las Vegas Weekly, Sin City’s primary alternative paper, ran an article by Richard Arbowitz that was a stark, yet tender, account of how Stagliano turned his multiple AVN Award-winning film into an uncompromising dance show—and lived to tell the tale.
Interspersed with criticism from Vegas entertainment reviewers, Arbowitz’ article documents Stagliono’s pursuit of his vision regardless of profitability, a vision the writer avers makes the dance show great but which leads him to suggest the show is not financially viable.
The problem with The Fashionistas is that it isn’t cookie-cutter Las Vegas. Vegas is a town unlike any other in the universe, a place where Andrew Dice Clay retains the popularity he had in the ‘80s, and where impersonators are considered top-tier talent.
| <?PHP print Create_Archive_Image_Tag('<% Content_ID %>', "fashio_st.jpg", "", " "); ?> |
Yet Stagliano’s show has vision. One reviewer describing the show said, “It is magnificent. The level of the dancing and the choreography is unbelievable. The costumes are wild. It is incredibly good. It is so classy and so sexy."
Michael Weatherford, entertainment writer for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, wrote, "[A] pornographer has just embarrassed a lot of people. Adult video mogul John Stagliano has shown the producers of Skintight, Midnight Fantasy, Bite and even Zumanity what a real Las Vegas adult show can be, if one is not concerned with selling tickets to charter planes of tourists."
Discussing a review, Arbowitz spoke with Stagliano about the criticisms he and others have of the show. Arbowitz noted that virtually everyone agrees The Fashionistas is a dance show with vision. Yet it ignores Las Vegas conventions in terms of structure and pacing and its anti-climatic ending, compared to the blowout endings Las Vegas audiences have come to expect. But Stagliano insists that he won’t change the final scene.
"I tell you that the problem is that this isn't how Vegas shows end, and your answer is that this is how mine does,” Arbowitz wrote. “He [Stagliano] then again explains all of the narrative, thematic and symbolic reasons why the ending can't be changed.”
But in the end, Stagliano has a show he’s happy with, and now the energy he put into developing the show will be dedicated to marketing it.
"We'll get there, because the show looks great," Stagliano told Arbowitz. “We are doing a really good show.... For now, for tonight, I'm really happy with the show and where it’s at.
To read the full article, click here.
