Jubilee!

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Jubilee!
Genre Revue
Show typeResident show
Date of premiereJuly 31, 1981 (1981-07-31)
Final showFebruary 11, 2016 (2016-02-11)
Locationoriginally at the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino, which later became Horseshoe Las Vegas
Creative team
Producer Donn Arden
Costume designer Bob Mackie
Costume designerPete Menefee
Official website
Jubilee! - Full Cast and Crew photo - 2014 Jubilee! Full Cast and Crew - 2014.jpg
Jubilee! - Full Cast and Crew photo - 2014
Jubilee! Cast Photo (Final Cast) 2016 - Costume Showcase Jubilee! - 2016 (Final Cast).jpg
Jubilee! Cast Photo (Final Cast) 2016 - Costume Showcase
The Dollys from the Follies Dollys - Heart.jpg
The Dollys from the Follies
Disco Section Costume - Close Up Disco - Close up.jpg
Disco Section Costume - Close Up
Dolly Sisters getting ready Dollys - Mirror.jpg
Dolly Sisters getting ready
Jubilee! showgirls JubileeDancersByPhilKonstantin.jpg
Jubilee! showgirls

Jubilee! was a Las Vegas Strip-based spectacular revue. [2] It opened on July 31, 1981, at an initial cost of 10 million dollars and was originally produced by Donn Arden. [3] The show ended its 35-year run on February 11, 2016. [4] [5] [6]

Contents

Model Tiffany Coyne once danced in the show. [7]

Reception

When it closed in 2016, this resident show at Bally's Las Vegas was the longest-running production show in Las Vegas. The Jubilee! showgirls were an icon of old Vegas. The show used costumes designed by Bob Mackie and Pete Menefee. There were 36 individual designs, each based on the jewel tones of amethyst, sapphire, emerald, and ruby. [8] UNLV Special Collections houses many of the original costume design drawings which can be accessed online through the Showgirls collection from UNLV Digital Collections. [3]

Many of the show's sets dated back to the original production. Jubilee!'s longest serving principal dancer from the opening night until her departure 23 years later was Linda Green. The final closing cast consisted of 3 female singers, 3 male singers, 18 male dancers, 23 topless dancers, and 19 female dancers. Within the female covered and topless dancers, they were further categorized as "short" and "tall" dancers. A "short" dancer is a female dancer between 5 ft 8 in (173 cm) and 5 ft 9 in (175 cm) and a "tall" female dancer is between 5 ft 10 in (178 cm) and 6 ft 2 in (188 cm). One may have been surprised at how tall the dancers were because of the proportions of the stage, which was three and a half stories high, giving the illusion that the performers are smaller in relationship to the stage.[ citation needed ]

Acts

Legacy

Screenwriter Kate Gersten visited the Jubilee! show before it concluded and was inspired to write a play about the dancers in a similar Las Vegas show's closing. That unproduced play became the basis for the screenplay she wrote for the 2024 American drama film The Last Showgirl , directed by Gia Coppola and starring Pamela Anderson as a Vegas showgirl near the end of her career at the closing of a long-running show. [10] The American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift donned the rhinestone-encrusted bra and thong set worn by one of the Jubilee! showgirls, complete with hip swags, a headpiece and feathered armbands, for one of the cover artworks of her twelfth studio album, The Life of a Showgirl (2025). [11]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Phil Konstantin. "Jubilee Dancers at KUSI TV". americanindian.net. Retrieved 23 June 2017.
  2. ↑ Bell, Joseph N. (15 July 1988). "Donn Arden's Art: Beauty, Disasters Wrapped in Extravagance". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 10 November 2024. Donn Arden...was there, sleeping in a suite on the 10th floor when the fire broke out early in the morning of Nov. 20, 1980...Margaret Kelly...
  3. 1 2 UNLV Libraries. "Jubilee!". Showgirls. UNLV Libraries Digital Collections. Archived from the original on 30 July 2012. Retrieved 10 September 2012.
  4. ↑ "End of an era: 34-year-old 'Jubilee' concludes — what's next?". lasvegassun.com. 11 February 2016. Retrieved 23 June 2017.
  5. ↑ "'Jubilee' show at Bally's to close after 34-year run". lasvegassun.com. 12 December 2015. Retrieved 23 June 2017.
  6. ↑ "Curtain coming down on 'Jubilee!'--Las Vegas' long-running showgirl revue". 14 December 2015. Retrieved 23 June 2017– via LA Times.
  7. ↑ Wright, Becky. "Tiffany Coyne the real deal". Hers. Utah: Standard-Examiner. Archived from the original on 2012-01-14. Retrieved 16 October 2013.
  8. ↑ Merrill, Jane (2018). The showgirl costume an illustrated history. McFarland. p. 224. ISBN   978-1-4766-7174-1. OCLC   1240159008.
  9. ↑ Liann Hanson (14 November 2010). "Moonlighting Vegas Cop Takes It Off Onstage". NPR.org. Retrieved 23 June 2017.
  10. ↑ Coppola, Gia; Anderson, Pamela; Gersten, Kate; Shipka, Kiernan; Song, Brenda (September 7, 2024). "Pamela Anderson's Role Of A Lifetime In 'The Last Showgirl'" (Interview). Deadline Hollywood – via YouTube.
  11. ↑ Jackson, Hannah (August 19, 2025). "Taylor Swift's showgirl costume has a rich Las Vegas history". Vogue . Retrieved August 20, 2025.
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