CHANGES & CHANCES LAS VEGAS IN STORE FOR YET ANOTHER ROUND OF UPHEAVAL.

Byline: ERIC NOLAND

Travel Editor

If at first you don't succeed ... rename, redesign, and sweep out one troupe of underwhelming performers to make way for a fresh new bunch.

Consider it Las Vegas' business model for the coming months.

The abysmally unsuccessful Aladdin is being converted to a Planet Hollywood hotel. The adjacent Desert Passage shopping mall is chucking its Arabian bazaar theme and resolving to do better as a glitzy Miracle Mile. The puppets of "Avenue Q" at the Wynn have been returned to the sock drawer in the hope of better things with another Broadway spinoff, "Spamalot."

Also on the Strip this year, the Venetian is adding a new wing -- but is veering away from the ostentatious design elements of the Italian Renaissance. And Paris Las Vegas, undaunted by Broadway's checkered history in this city, has tapped the humor of Mel Brooks with an abbreviated staging of "The Producers."

Yet, for all this, 2007 represents a bit of a lull for Las Vegas -- at least by the standards of this bastion of excess. Next year will see the addition of more than 11,000 rooms in four development projects: Echelon Place on the site of an imploded Stardust, Wynn's Encore, a Trump tower and a W hotel.

It can be dizzying keeping up with a building boom that has proceeded apace since the creation of the Bellagio in 1998. When Eric Idle, a founding member of the Monty Python ensemble, swung through town recently to promote his "Spamalot," he declared: "I love Las Vegas. It will be wonderful when it's finished."

In the meantime, here's a progress report:

Perhaps the ghost of Elvis didn't appreciate the reconstruction of the hotel where he wed Priscilla in 1967, because the Aladdin has been functioning as if under a curse since reopening in 2000 with a theme right out of "Tales of the Arabian Nights."

It plunged into bankruptcy within a year of its opening, and needed to be rescued from its bath of red ink in 2003 by Planet Hollywood and Starwood Resorts. A renovation was launched in October 2005, and was phased so that the hotel and casino could remain open. Well, the work is still under way -- 17 months and counting -- with the official premiere expected this year, though no firm date has been set.

The Aladdin's troubles were legion, but to begin with, "it was built horribly," said Anthony Curtis, president of the Las Vegas Advisor newsletter. "It was a logistics nightmare in terms of bringing people into the place. They had stuff inside, but they didn't even have a driveway; there was no access from the Strip. (Instead, the vehicle entrance was at the rear of the property, off Harmon Avenue.)

"It was the most absurd design I've ever seen on the Strip. People have a lot of choices, and you've got to allow people to drive up to your place. People who are staying there are going to find it, but destination business isn't enough. Tourists need to be able to drive up to the front door."

Well, brace yourself: In the new design, they still won't be able to. That rear entrance will, however, "be much more prominent," promised spokeswoman Amy Sadowsky, and "the whole front is going to be redone, and be much more pedestrian-friendly."

While the public waits for the finished product, the names Aladdin and Planet Hollywood are being used interchangeably on the Strip, creating confusion for some visitors.

The redesigned mall, Miracle Mile Shops, will have "a much more stripped-down, modern look -- very sleek and streamlined," said publicist Brad Seidel.

It all figures to be intriguing ... "assuming it gets done," said Curtis.

License for silliness

The concept of Broadway shows in Las Vegas was chancy from the beginning. This, after all, has long been the domain of singers, circuses and comics. Stage productions have been scaled down and presented without intermissions, but the genre has nonetheless had an uneven track record here.

"Mamma Mia!" has enjoyed a four-year run of success at the Mandalay Bay, but "Hairspray" lasted just four months at the Luxor before closing last summer, and "Avenue Q" closed at the Wynn last spring after a nine-month run.

Steve Wynn will now take another swing with "Spamalot," which begins preview performances Thursday in the run-up to a March 31 opening, but even he has begun to apply gallows humor to the whole concept.

"We looked for the perfect piece of material to put a final chapter on theater in Las Vegas," Wynn said at a recent press conference. "This is the end."

Actually, this might be the exact type of show to resonate strongly with the Vegas audience -- notably the baby boomers.

Written by Idle and John Du Prez, the show is one of the hottest tickets on Broadway. It is billed as a musical "lovingly ripped off from the motion picture" (the 1975 cult classic "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"), and promises "lusty maidens, dancing divas, a killer rabbit and the only legless knight appearing on the Las Vegas Strip."

"Seinfeld" character John O'Hurley will play the role of King Arthur here, and, in keeping with the Vegas norm for Broadway productions, it will be pared down to 90 minutes and run without an intermission.

The deck has also been stacked for its success. "Spamalot" has done well on tour across the United States, but Wynn bought rights that prevent it from touring in California and Arizona until 2012.

It's being staged in a remodeled theater that once presented "Avenue Q," but there is hope that the broad humor and familiar silliness of the story will result in a much different fate. "If you said puppets, you were in trouble," Wynn said of the departed show. "If you didn't say puppets, you weren't telling the truth."

Producers of laughs

Mel Brooks would seem to be another natural fit for Las Vegas. His movies, after all, are a steady diet of one-liners, gags, shtick and locker-room humor -- the kind of thing that has reverberated with these audiences since Shecky Green was playing the Tropicana.

Paris Las Vegas is banking that his Broadway show "The Producers" -- which opened last month -- will have all the resonance of a classic lounge act.

"This does not attempt to make you a better person," said Michael Weaver, who heads entertainment marketing for the hotel-casino. "Some of the shows in Vegas have been very strong message shows. This is not a message show. The only message from this show is laugh your head off.

"I think that is very much in keeping with the mood of Las Vegas. We know from other activities that we orchestrate -- restaurants, gaming -- that people come here because for a brief 72 hours they want to forget what the other 362 days are about."

This is yet another show based on a decades-old movie, in this case Brooks' 1968 film of the same name that starred Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder. Like "Spamalot," it has been a smash on Broadway, and Tony-winning director Susan Stroman was dispatched to the desert to enhance its prospects for success. David Hasselhoff plays Roger DeBris.

The Las Vegas staging is the only permanent production of the musical outside New York, but devotees might suffer a bit of joke-deprivation. "The Producers" runs 2 hours, 15 minutes on Broadway but is the requisite 90 minutes without an intermission on the Strip. Gotta get those players back to the tables and slot machines as quickly as possible.

Adding on

Thematic indulgence was all the rage on the Strip at the turn of the millennium, but maybe that wears thin after awhile.

The Venetian is adding a massive new wing this year, but it is taking great pains to distance it from the original. In fact, it is being characterized as a separate and distinct entity -- though it still has an Italian name, Palazzo, and will be connected to the Venetian and the Grand Canal Shoppes at strategic locations.

According to promotional materials, Palazzo's design and ambience will be "reminiscent of high-end locales such as Beverly Hills and Bel Air."

"From a consumer standpoint, some like chocolate, some like vanilla ice cream," Venetian spokesman Ron Reese said of the deviation. "We're giving them a chance to experience a Renaissance-Venice-themed property and another, softer Italian theme and design."

(Funny, those of us in L.A. probably never thought of Beverly Hills and Bel Air as being particularly Italian in nature. But, whatever.)

Targeted for completion in the fall, Palazzo will be a 50-story tower with 3,025 rooms, a casino, a retail complex of nearly half a million square feet, a showroom and a generous expanse of convention room. The mall will be anchored by an upscale department store, Barneys New York.

Because all of this is being wedged into the northwestern corner of the Venetian property, Palazzo will have something common to urban hotels but revolutionary for Las Vegas -- subterranean parking.

When this project is completed, Sheldon Adelson's Venetian empire will offer more than 7,000 rooms.

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IF YOU GO

ALADDIN/PLANT HOLLYWOOD: 3667 Las Vegas Blvd. S.; [phone], [phone]; www.aladdincasino.com.

"THE PRODUCERS": Paris Las Vegas, 3655 Las Vegas Blvd. S. Tickets: [phone]; www.parislasvegas.com.

"SPAMALOT": Wynn Las Vegas, 3131 Las Vegas Blvd. S. Tickets: [phone], [phone]; www.wynnlasvegas.com.

VENETIAN: 3355 Las Vegas Blvd. S.; [phone], [phone]; www.venetian.com.

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4 photos, box

Photo:

(1 -- color) The front of the Aladdin remains a construction zone -- its condition for the past year and a half -- as it continues a very deliberate conversion to a Planet Hollywood hotel and casino on the Las Vegas Strip.

(2 -- color) David Hasselhoff struts across a Paris Las Vegas stage as Roger DeBris in "The Producers," another Broadway spinoff that hopes to strike a chord with Las Vegas' fickle audiences.

(3 -- 4) Monty Python's "Spamalot," the live comedy spectacle, above, will begin performances at Wynn Las Vegas on Thursday. At left, the Desert Passage shopping mall at the Aladdin is chucking its Arabian bazaar theme and resolving to do better as glitzy Miracle Mile Shops. The construction is confusing for some tourists.

Gene Blevins/Special to Great Escapes

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IF YOU GO (see text)