The Possibility Machine

Introduction: Flash!--Splash

Jake Johnson

Part One: The Road to Vegas

1 On the Edge of the Desert

Robert Fink

2 Reimagining the Popular on the Vegas Circuit: Helen Traubel, Diva Populism, and the Labor of Publicity

Michael M. Reinhard

3 It Was Better When the Mob Ran the Town

Janis McKay

Part Two: Overheard

4 Music as Misdirection

Jason Leddington

5 Presence, Absence, and Live Virtuality: Soundscapes in Cirque du Soleil on the Las Vegas Strip

Lynda Paul

6  Pura Alegria: Young Adult Musicians Learning Mariachi in Schools and Participating in the Las Vegas Mariachi Scene

Cassaundra Rodriguez and Celine Ayala

Part Three: Second Chances

7 The Master and the Mob: NoËl Coward’s Musical Identity in the Golden Age of Las Vegas

Arianne Johnson Quinn

8  Elvis in Vegas: The King of Rock ’n’ Roll and the City of Second Chances

Brian F. Wright

9 Celine Dion and Cher’s Vegas Residencies: The Envoiced and Embodied Spectacle of Feminine Aging on the Vegas Stage

Jessica A. Holmes and Michael Kinney

Part Four: Virtuoso Fantastique

10 Viva Viagra: Vegas, Elvis, and “A Little Blue Pill”

James Deaville and Kirstin Bews

11 Shall We Go for It? The Hermeneutics of Celine Dion’s Las Vegas Show

Sam Murray

12 Liberace’s Surfaces: Democratic Virtuosity, American Fantasies, and Vegas Pianism

Pheaross Graham

Part Five: Making Book

13 Comedy Tonight: Broadway Musicals on the Las Vegas Strip

Arreanna Rostosky

14 “Trouble Is, We Don’t Make the Rules”: The Las Vegas Years of Jazz and Classical Violinist Ginger Smock

Laura Risk

15 “For Adult Audiences Only”: A History of LGBTQ Performers on the Las Vegas Stage

Louis Niebur

Part Six: Leaving Vegas

16 The Real Deal: Impersonation and the American Dream in Branson and Vegas

Joanna Dee Das and Maddie House-Tuck

17 Salaciously Family Friendly: The Unlikely Porousness of Sin City and the American Boob Tube

Kelly Kessler

18 Representation and Value in Michael Daugherty’s Las Vegas Works

Laura Dallman

19 Specters of Mine: Musicological Research in the Desert of the Opera

Carlo Lanfossi

Contributors

Index