Las Vegas Strip 'Spamalot' to close in July

The list of Broadway hits on the Las Vegas Strip is about to get shorter.

After a 15-month run, "Monty Python's Spamalot" at the Wynn Las Vegas resort will close in July, the casino announced Thursday.

Longtime Las Vegas staple Danny Gans, an impressionist and comedian, will replace the Tony Award-winning musical in a newly renamed Encore theater.

Spamalot opened in late March 2007 as casino mogul Steve Wynn's second attempt to infuse the city's Cirque du Soleil-dominated entertainment scene with a touch of musical Broadway.

Wynn spent $10 million refurbishing the theater that once housed "Avenue Q," his disappointing first attempt, and bought the rights that prevented "Spamalot" from touring in California and Arizona until five years.

Wynn said Thursday that the comedic musical "held its own" in Las Vegas, filling on average 80 percent of the 1,500-seat theater for seven shows a week.

"It's pretty good. It's good enough to keep it going," he said.

He called the decision part of an attempt to create a separate identity for the show's theater, which will be associated with a new adjoining casino-hotel now under construction.

Encore, a $2.1 billion property, is scheduled to open in December. Gans, who now performs at the Mirage, will open his show early in the new year, Wynn said.

"You have to have an entertainment centerpiece like Bellagio had 'O,' like Mirage had Siegfried and Roy," Wynn said. "You have to establish the brand and make a clear statement that this is it's own place."

Wynn previously owned both the Mirage and the Bellagio casinos and is credited with bringing Cirque du Soleil to Las Vegas. The popular French Canadian troupe plans to open its sixth permanent production on the Las Vegas Strip in September.

Broadway musicals have a much shakier record with Las Vegas audiences.

"Avenue Q" closed after just nine months at Wynn Las Vegas; and "Hairspray" folded at the Luxor last June after less than four months. "The Producers" lasted a year before closing at the Paris Las Vegas.

"Mamma Mia!" is set to close at Mandalay Bay late next summer after 2,300 performances in Las Vegas, making it the longest-running full-length Broadway musical on the Strip.

The shows battle a language barrier with many international visitors and gamblers' short attention spans in a city with many diversions.

Wynn was once among the most vocal advocates for bringing musicals to the Strip. Although he's turning to a tested headliner, he said he hasn't given up. He also is working on a musical production that would open in Las Vegas, he said.

"The things that have worked the best in this city are things that can't be seen anywhere else," he said. "My dream is to one day have musical theater that has the capacity to be spectacular, that has great music, but can only be seen here. It doesn't go on tour, it doesn't open in New York."

He declined to offer more details.