Jerry Fink has a rare interview with former Cirque mastermind Franco Dragone. Since leaving Cirque, Dragone has created both Celine Dion's "A New Day" and Le Reve. In the too brief interview, Dragone simply denies the general perception that there are any problems with attendance at Le Reve at Wynn: "Our attendance is growing all the time." I wish Fink would have pushed Dragone harder on this point instead of lapping it up. I also wish he would have gotten him to talk a bit about Dion's show which originally billed as an almost equal collaboration between Dragone and the diva. But nowadays the marketing and discussion and reviews of the show seem to focus on Celine alone. Anyway, as I mentioned before on the Buffet, Le Reve has certainly improved since opening, but Dragone is far too coy when he claims here that he isn't worried about empty seats because the theatre has so many of them. I am quite certain that Steve Wynn never intended to build extra seats for the aesthetic thrill of seeing them remain empty: Wynn collects Picasso and not Duchamp.

(photo by Lawrence K. Ho/LAT)