Casino Connection Nevada

Making it up

Wayne Brady is making waves in Las Vegas

by Staff

Depending on your age, you are likely to know of Wayne Brady from either his talk show, The Wayne Brady Show, his spots on Whose Line Is It Anyway or his guest appearance on Chappelle’s Show. Or you may recognize Brady from his hosting duties on Don’t Forget the Lyrics, or countless guest appearances on a number of other shows.

But Brady is also making a name for himself with his show at the Venetian, Making It Up. He was named the 2008 Best All-Around Performer by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, and he has become the permanent headliner at the Venetian.

Brady is a master of many styles, and because very little of the show is scripted and much of it is based on audience participation, each performance is unique.

Brady performs in the Venetian Showroom Thursday through Monday at 9 p.m. Tickets are $49, $69, $89. $149 VIP tickets that include a front-row seat and chance for a meet-and-greet after the show are also available.

Casino Connection: What was it like putting together your show? I know you’ve been performing on and off in Vegas for a few years, but you haven’t really put together a show if this kind of magnitude? So talk a little bit about what it was like to put this show together.

Wayne Brady: Well, in putting this show together, even now, I’m making changes and doing things because that’s just the kind of person that I am. I just get bored easily and I always want to try and do the next best, biggest thing. I want to satisfy the people who are fans of Who’s Line and know me in that world, but also as being someone who has done a lot more than that… being a romantic performer, being a singer and being a dancer as well, and an actor, and doing the whole nine.

I thought that if I was going to come out to Vegas, I wanted to do something that pretty much let me do everything that I have fun doing, everything that people expect of me and maybe some things that folks don’t expect of me. And, above all, to give them their money’s worth. So I tried to put on my thinking cap and say, well, what would Sammy Davis Jr. do, and what would those old school performers do? And I think that the type of show I have right now addresses that. It’s mostly improv, but it’s improv games that people who have seen Who’s Line would love.

There is a lot of audience participation, which is something that a lot of shows say that they have audience participation, but that pretty much just amounts to putting the audience into things that they already have planned. At my show, the audience is another cast member. And, so whether it’s me doing moving bodies, or doing props with them, or creating a story line with them, or doing a musical number with them, they are definitely a part of the show.

And how do the audiences respond to that?

They go nuts. They go absolutely nuts because the show, I think, keeps them on a ride. That from the time I hit the stage, there’s music, and there’s comedy, and that pretty much sets up the entire thing because that’s the dichotomy upon which I’ve based my whole career: The love of being onstage and doing comedy or drama or whatever, and also interjecting music, which has also been a lifelong love.

The crowds in Las Vegas are a little bit different from your typical crowd like, say , in a New York theatre, who comes specifically for a show. Talk a little bit about how that changes up the dynamic when you’re performing, since it’s such an interactive show.

Well, you definitely need to work harder to keep the audience’s attention because… now not all of the audiences, because a good half to three quarters of the audience that comes in, they are destination audiences. They have come in for the weekend; they want to have a great time. But your show is part of their plan.

And then the other part of that are people in the flip flops and the T-shirts, carrying that humongous, big-ass thing that they drink from… that big, big drink with a strap. Vegas is the only place in the world where they have a drink that’s big enough that people need a strap for it.

So you have those guys and you have to work harder to keep their attention because the casino is right outside those stage doors. So, slot machines are right outside those doors. They have partied all day. You are a stop on the road to more partying before they go home shamefully Monday morning back to their regular job. So your job is to really grab them and keep them.

What happens when the audience calls out for something and you have no idea what they’re talking about?

Then you still do it. You roll with it. The audience didn’t pay you to go, “Oh, I don’t know that one. Could I get another one please?” Because then it defeats the purpose of improv.

Improv itself is an imperfect art. It was never meant to be perfect or correct. So by virtue of that rule, nothing is actually right onstage, and nothing is wrong. Now, that works great in a classroom scenario, when the teachers are saying “Don’t be afraid to fail,” and it’s all wonderful and roses and flowers. But when an audience has paid big Vegas prices to see you, you can’t fail. But you can make a mistake that can then turn into a great laugh. 

So if someone gives me something that I don’t know what it is, I just take it and acknowledge it and I just make up what it is in my mind. Because that’s what the name of the show is, making it up. And so if I don’t know it, I make it up. And sometimes if I do know it, I still make it up because it’s funnier.