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A Man For All Seasons
By Bobbie Katz
One look at Danny Gans on stage and it’s
easy to see why he has become Las Vegas’ ideal man.
He’s talented, he’s witty, he “cooks”
in front of an audience.and he’s just loaded with personalities
– 300 of them to be exact. Not to mention that he’s
always the lives of the party – the one he invites people
to nightly in the Danny Gans Theatre at the Mirage.
What’s amazing about Gans is that he’s Frank Sinatra,
Janet Jackson, Al Pacino, Regis Philbin, Creed, Bruce Springsteen
and numerous others rolled into one, but the lean and fit
Gans doesn’t seem to gain anything but audience members.
People even rally around him when he appears to have a little
frog in his throat -- of course, that would only be Kermit,
thank you very much. Like his Muppet friend, the entertainer
has his own “rainbow connection” with the crowd,
one that allows him to show the many hues of his talent that
satiates all ages.
“I have people in my audiences from their mid-20’s
to senior citizens, which is why the variety of my show is
so important,” Gans notes. “ I’ve always
said that my act is like the weather in Hawaii – if
you don’t like it, wait five minutes and it’s
going to change.”
Those forces of nature that mark Gans’ performance have
been responsible for his consistently sold-out shows since
his opening at the Mirage in April 2000.
“To be able to sell out nearly 1300 seats twelve months
a year is phenomenal,” Gans says humbly. “My attitude
is that you have to treat every show like it’s your
last. When I leave the stage, I’m totally wiped out
and I feel that I’ve given as much of myself as I possibly
can. I never walk through a show.”
Gans relates that he enjoys the creative process of writing
and putting the show together as much as he enjoys performing.
He reveals that there is never a time when he says that he
is going to sit down and write a joke, rather it’s a
continuous process whereby he is always listening to the radio
or reading the newspaper to get ideas. He won’t do certain
voices unless he knows they will get a response from the audience;
he points out that it is the people who have bought the tickets
that he is trying to please, not himself.
Creatively, he finds that late at night after the show is
a good time for him to write and he will often try a new idea
out on stage the next evening to see if it works. He says
that the process is always a hit-and-miss but that when it
all comes together and the audience is responding, there is
no better feeling. But make no mistake about it – Gans’
personal process begins long before he hits the spotlight.
“I get to the theater each evening about three hours
before show time,” Dans acknowledges. “I’ll
start preparing my props and thinking about the show. I’ll
then go over my notes from the night before and spend some
time vocalizing. After that, I’ll usually rehearse with
the entire band for half an hour before I get dressed for
the performance.”
Gans, who debuted in Las Vegas at the Stratosphere in 1996
and moved to the Rio in 1997, playing there for three years
before moving to the Mirage, says that he has three hours
of material that he has amassed over the last several years
that he can play around with. He has a repertoire of about
250-300 voices, having added 30 in the past year, and does
close to 100 in his show each night.
“In my show, the humor is everything,” Gans explains..“The
majority of the show is funny so that when I talk about the
touching moments – such as my family or when I do a
tribute to the Apollo Theater and do Sarah Vaughn, Billie
Holiday and Sammy Davis Jr., or the acting segment where I
talk about some of my favorite actors like Al Pacino, Tom
Hanks, Sly Stallone, Katherine Hepburn and Henry Fonda –
they stand out so much more. I go off on characters all the
time; there are certain ones where I can really ad-lib --
for example, when I do Inspector Clousseau, it’s 50
percent ad-lib. But I want the audience to think, boy, this
guy’s having a great time because I am. I absolutely
love what I do.”
When he does an impression, Gans tries to divorce his personal
self from the process. “I am detached from it for a
moment,” he explains. “I don’t feel Danny.
That’s when I’m really as close as I’m going
to get. If I feel like I’m Danny doing this person,
then I’m really not into the character. An actor would
say that he’s ‘in the moment’ and it’s
really the same with impressions. I feel like that person
for that moment when I’m doing it right.”
Where his singing impressions are concerned, someone like
a Michael Jackson who has such definite characteristics –
his look, his dancing, his voice, his mannerisms, his glove
– is easier to achieve than an Eric Clapton, who basically
sits and plays a guitar and sings. For the latter, Gans says
that the voice has to be right-on because there is nothing
to draw on comedically. As for the fact that he does 15 female
voices in the show, the entertainer reveals that a voice is
a voice.
“I just have to make sure that my underwear is tighter
that night,” Gans quips. He notes that the key, however,
is in the mannerisms and in positioning his body in a certain
way so that is believable
As a point of fact, Gans sees the umbrella of his show being
the impressions but does not see himself as an impressionist
per se. Rather, he would like to be known as a variety entertainer,
one who does impressions but who also sings, dances and does
humorous and dramatic pieces. According to Gans, the emphasis
of the show is on entertainment.
From a highly seasoned performer, one might add
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ADDITIONAL
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BOBBIE KATZ
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