I am here. OMG! I work at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino which is this big, gold panel rising out of the horizon on the south end of the strip. It's ridiculous, there's like all these huge neon signs and some palm trees and a fountain or something and there are Mamma Mia slot machines with rotating screens above them playing videos from past productions, and every 10 minutes or so no matter where you are you hear Dancing Queen piped in over the speakers. It's carpeted (for some reason I thought that was weird), dimly lit and there are no windows so you never know what time of day it is and you can smoke everywhere. During the day the casino is pretty empty so it gets kind of creepy and depressing as the slot machines and croupiers just kind of sit there in a smoky-ABBA-infused haze. The first time I ever went inside I was with Rob Sutton who plays one of my dads and who had driven me there from the airport, "No fucking way this is where I go to work everyday," I said to him. "Yup!" he replied.
What I didn't realize about all the casinos in Vegas is that each one is like it's own little world. One could theoretically spend their entire vacation in one casino since each one has 10 restaurants, a theater, a music venue, a pool (some with real sand and waves), a spa, a mall and enough bars to keep you constantly drunk for days. I guess that's the point. I'm excited that they let you bring drinks into the theaters. They should do that on Broadway, I bet it would up their attendance. And make some of those second acts easier to bear.
