This is Part 9 of a multi-part series of posts.  I suggest that you start with Part 1 if you have the time and really want to appreciate the full effulgence.

Epilogue to Iphigenia:
One day, around five years later, I received a telephone call from Ralph Alswang, a prominent theater designer, who told me of a national contest for The Best Rock Opera being staged by the Aladdin Theater for the Performing Arts in Las Vegas.  They were just completing a new 7500-seat theater at the Aladdin Hotel in Vegas and the show winner of the contest would receive at least a year contract running nightly in Vegas,

I laughed at the thought of Iphigenia, a Euripidean classic and Greek tragedy to boot, in Vegas, but after he explained that if I won, it would make me a rich man for life since I was the sole owner of the piece and would receive 5% of the gross, I reconsidered the strange idea.  My lawyer felt that it would not be a bad move at all.  Lawyers well understand the dollar signs.

Ralph Alswang, having seen Iphigenia at The Public Theater, felt that I actually might have a pretty good chance of winning it if I were to submit.

To make a long story short, I took a couple of weeks and reworked a new draft of the piece with Ralph’s suggestion that Iphigenia become one performer (instead of 12) with a large 40 voice chorus of women around her.

We also renamed the piece, Masquerade.  To this day I have no idea what that title meant and what it had to do with Euripides’ play.

I was flown to Vegas, pitched and sang the idea to a bunch of Italian-type business-men in suits and won the contest.

The normal Broadway musical theater seats between 1000 and 1500 people.  This experience, with its 7500 seats, would be 5 to 7 times the money and so the budgets for the show were outrageous.

We first hired Geoffrey Holder, the hot director of The Wiz on Broadway, to direct.  Geoffrey was a gas with his big Vegas ideas and grandiose staging and I was in pig heaven with the contemplation of what was to come.

First we hired Blood, Sweat and Tears as the show band.  Their career was a bit on the wane at the time, but they would still be a huge name in Vegas.  I worked with Bobby Colomby, the drummer and de facto owner of the group, and began to develop the music for the group and the much larger venue along with master orchestrator Claus Ogerman.  Bobby was a terrific guy and a most enthusiastic partner and made the experience a real pleasure for me.

We then began to cast the show through another friend, John Sherer, who was my right hand man and another gem to work with.  Together we traveled all over the country and auditioned beautiful and talented rock n’ roll women singers for the chorus – Miami, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and finally New York – not at all a bad job for two guys in their late twenties.

We put together an amazing group of drop-dead gorgeous talent that would stand Vegas on its ear and rock the house night after night.

To that formidable Greek chorus we added Leon Russell, rock n’ roll’s iconic pianist and vocalist, as Achilles, Thelma Houston, one of my favorite R&B/ Gospel singers on the planet, as Clytemnestra, Sam Moore from Rock and Roll Hall of Fame group Sam and Dave as Agamemnon and Frieda Payne who had a #1 Best Seller in Band Of Gold  to her credit as Iphigenia.

I worked with a lovely man named James Abraham who was running the theater for the Aladdin Hotel and would be the show’s producer.  He was driven, so enthusiastic, and never afraid to spend the money to get the best available.

For several months I lived in Las Vegas at the Aladdin Hotel and that was a trip.  I had a presidential suite and all the trimmings and felt that I could get very used to this kind of life style.  I’ll admit to getting suckered into the Vegas allure.  All that money, on one level, made life quite bearable.

I got to know the hotel staff since I was a live-in regular and was treated with extra-special care.  It was even suggested to me by them that when I played the slot machines (luckily my only gambling penchant) that I should play the ones closest to the front check-in desk, for those were the ones that were set to the best odds of winning.  This was probably the best thing I learned during my stay.

We were two weeks away from our first rehearsals in Vegas and finishing up casting for our girls in New York.  We had just two days of casting left and then I was to have a week to rest up and prepare for the rehearsals beginning in Vegas.  I was going to go to Jamaica for a week and just cool out.

The phone woke me up at 9:00 AM.  I groggily picked it up and mumbled my “Hello.”  It was my old pal Ralph Alswang who got me into all this in the first place.  He said, “Peter, did you see the front page of the New York Times this morning?”  I mumbled, “Well, it’s a little early, Ralph, and I don’t read The Times.

Then he dropped the bomb.

My friend James Alexander and his pals were all going to prison.  They had illegally confiscated Detroit union pension and welfare funds to build the theater and, I guess, fund the production.  The theater would close and the show was cancelled.

A strange unearthly numbness swept over me.  It would not sink in.  I had to get up and go to a day’s casting for a show that would not be produced.  I had to do it two days in a row and conceal the truth from everyone while we scrambled and tried to switch the venue, reconstruct the idea, perhaps open on Broadway … anything.

But the costs of production were now simply too high.  No other theater could sustain these kinds of budgets, and besides, our producer, the guy who should have been the one leading the transition was nowhere to be found, for he was packing for prison.

It was over.  All that money, all that fame, all that fun …

There’s no doubt about it.  In the end, Iphigenia was a tragedy.  But the lessons were profound.

The lure of Vegas and the placement of this beloved show into that atmosphere never did seem right to me.  There was always something in it all that went against my grain.  But the money was oh so tempting.  And the opportunity to present on such a large scale was a reality that was truly exciting and I had convinced myself that we could bring something really fine to a place that needed cultural entertainment.

But at its root was always dishonesty.  The money.  It wasn’t ours to begin with.  I never had any indication of any shenanigans.  I was a total innocent swept up by the allure of show biz at its most commercial.  It left me with a taste in my mouth that I will never forget.  It was definitely a major moment in the education of this composer.