9 Best Performing Arts in Las Vegas, Nevada

Sometimes it’s not the elements but how they are combined. Absinthe became one of the most popular shows on the Strip by turning Cirque du Soleil's opulent, dreamlike aesthetic on its head. A downscale, shabby-chic vibe unifies circus acrobatics, raunchy comedy, and saucy burlesque numbers inside a cozy tent in front of Caesars Palace. (At least it’s a tentlike structure; fire inspectors insisted on a sturdy, semipermanent pavilion.) The audience surrounds the performances on a small, 9-foot stage. The festive, low-tech atmosphere is furthered along by the host, a shifty insult comic known as The Gazillionaire. This is cheap raunch with a wink, and audiences have been in on it since 2011.

The three bald, blue, and silent characters in utilitarian uniforms have become part of the Las Vegas landscape. The satire of technology and information-overload merges with classic physical comedy and the Blue Man's unique brand of interstellar rock and roll. The group's latest home, a cozy theater at Luxor, brings the Blue dudes closer to their off-Broadway origins: paint splattering, mouth-catching marshmallows, and rollicking percussion jam sessions on PVC pipe contraptions.

KÀ, Cirque du Soleil's biggest Las Vegas production, opened in 2006 and still stands as an amazing monument to the sky's-the-limit mentality that fueled Vegas in the go-go 2000s. The $165-million opus frees the stage itself from gravity, replacing a fixed stage with an 80,000-pound deck, maneuvered by a giant gantry arm into a near-vertical position for the climactic battle. Giant puppets also factor into the bold interpretation of live martial-arts period fantasies like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in the adventures of two separated twins. Though no other Cirque in Las Vegas rivals it for sheer spectacle, those not sitting close enough to see faces can be confused by the story, which is told without dialogue.

Defying easy categorization, this hybrid attraction is at once familiar and wholly original. The immersive theater concept combines tasting rooms, a speakeasy environment, and an up-close view of the type of acrobatics and burlesque popularized by Absinthe. While it is a working rum distillery (short tours can be part of the experience), it's also a fanciful environment, not to mention a ticketed show—or rather, a series of small ones.

A basic package lets you sample as many as four high-octane rums as you wander through the maze of an elegantly surreal warehouse decorated to the last inch with ornate, turn-of-the-20th-century trappings. The corridors lead to a circular main stage and three smaller performance areas. The venue suggests you just "get lost" and divvy up your two hours as you seem fit, watching a few burlesque numbers, magic shows, cabaret singers, dancers, and acrobats swirling off the ground on straps or hoops. Tasting stations let you use a punch card to sample the rum straight-up—no ice, but bottled water is offered in generous stacks. You can also buy bottled cocktails. (Sorry wine and beer buffs, there’s no conventional bar or bartenders.) Add-on tickets might include a 1920s “seance” layered on a spooky magic/mentalism show, while “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” is a 16-course tasting menu in a sit-down room themed after the titular novel.

Meet the Beatles again—well, sort of—in a certified home run for Cirque du Soleil. Before he died, George Harrison persuaded the surviving Beatles (and Yoko Ono) to license the group's music to Cirque. The remixed music by the late Beatles producer George Martin and his son Giles is revelatory on 7,000 speakers, often like hearing the songs for the first time. In the summer of 2016, Cirque tweaked the show for its 10th anniversary, dialing down the elegiac version of postwar Liverpool and punching up the dance elements to emphasize the youth culture of Beatlemania. Cirque also added literal depictions of the Fab Four in videos and projection mapping for a great marriage of sensibilities that explodes with joy. Note: The show's future was uncertain after late 2023 as The Mirage transitions to the Hard Rock Hotel, but it seemed to have a shot at remaining at the Hard Rock, where it would certainly fit right in with the new theme and music memorabilia.

The reigning king of Las Vegas afternoons has reached his two-decade tenure on the Strip, now ensconced at medieval-themed Excalibur. (This being Vegas though, he shares a theater with the nighttime male revue Thunder from Down Under). These days, he greets the children of those who remember seeing his show when they were kids themselves. Onstage, King is ageless in his plaid suit and folksy "Howdy!" He's the perennial court jester rooted in vaudeville traditions of show business. A one-man hour of low-key, self-deprecating humor features the kind of close-up magic that's baffling but doesn't take the focus away from the running banter and audience participation.

More than $70 million was spent on Cirque du Soleil's theater at Bellagio back in 1998, and its liquid stage is the centerpiece of a one-of-a-kind show. It was money well spent: O remains one of the best-attended shows on the Strip. The title is taken from the French word for water (eau), and water is everywhere—1.5 million gallons of it, 12 million pounds of it, contained by a "stage" that, thanks to hydraulic lifts, can change shape and turn into dry land in no time. The intense and nonstop action by the show's acrobats, aerial gymnasts, trapeze artists, synchronized swimmers, divers, and contortionists make for a stylish spectacle that manages to fashion dreamlike imagery from its acrobatics, with a vague theme about the wellspring of theater and imagination.

Eccentric comic magicians Penn & Teller are more popular now than when they settled into the Rio in 2002. Ventures such as their durable TV magic contest Fool Us expanded the duo into mainstream culture beyond the Strip. Their magic in a gorgeous 1,500-seat theater remains topical and genuinely baffling, and their comedy is satiric, provocative, and thoughtful. The duo marked 30 years of Las Vegas performances in early 2023, all the more resonant because it was the 73-year-old Teller's return from a three-month break due to heart surgery.

Las Vegas got its very own ($150 million) world-class performing arts center in 2012, and what a spot it is. The multibuilding complex (complete with a bell tower) was designed to invoke 1930s-era art deco construction, the same motif you'll find at Hoover Dam. Here, this elegance graces the main concert hall, which anchors its calendar around a season of touring Broadway musicals and Las Vegas Philharmonic concerts, filling the in-between dates with touring concert acts and other attractions. The venue rivals that in any other city.