The Katz Meow | It's Reigning "Men The Experience" at the Riviera

By Bobbie Katz
www.vegasinsiderdaily.com

Watching out for mouthwatering temptations when you’re on vacation is definitely not fun. But now the Riviera has a way that you can savor all the “meat” you desire – along with some great “buns” – without giving YOUR waistline a second thought.

That’s because you’ll be drooling over the bodies of the dancers in the new male revue, “Men The Experience,” that is serving up a cornucopia of hunky masculinity at the hotel. There’s something for every taste – Caucasian, Latin, Italian-Latin, African-American and more – and it all comes sans “dressing” so what you see is what you get as they bring to the table pure, raw, undulating entertainment.

“All the male revues have guidelines as to what we can show,” says A.J, Trunk, who is the MC, choreographer and co-creator of the show, which is produced by Red Mercury. “We can’t pull the front of our costumes down too low but we can show our entire bare bottoms as long as it’s done in a classy manner. What we do is PG-13 at most but you still have to be 18 to get into the show. We are very respectful with the ladies. Everything in the show is live – there are no voiceovers – and our banter is never scripted. Even my MCing is not set in stone although I try to stay with some things because the guys are backstage getting ready and they need to know where they are where the timing of their numbers is concerned. But the show changes nightly.

“We are a five-guy show and our average change from number to number is only 50 seconds,” he adds. “Because of that, it’s very difficult to try and do a group number, then a solo number, then a three-man number and so on. The first time we did this show all the way through, I was hot and dizzy and I got nauseous – I didn’t realize how hard it was going to be. As we do more shows, it gets easier. Each guy does eight or nine numbers. But we’re tight and we work really well together. We’re very interactive with the girls in the audience. They don’t just sit there – we put them into the fantasy.”

There are actually eight dancers of various ethnicities in the show, including one who is also another MC, all who rotate on a weekly basis to keep the show sharp. The guys, who range in age from 26-38, are A,J, Bebe, Alejandro, Kaleb, Taurus, Ed, Julian, and Byrne. A.J., who was with the “Men of X” at Hooters, put a lot of the guys together last November when he started working on “Men The Experience.” He brought a few of the guys from “Men of X” to this project as well as some from “Men of Sapphire” who are still performing in that show at the Sapphire Club as well. He started out with twelve then weaned that number down to eight.

“The most important thing is having a good crew of dancers who get along well with each other and who rehearse well together,” A.J. explains. “We’re all friends and we all get along – we hang together outside of the show. And we have fun together. The girls always compliment us on how much fun we’re having on stage – that’s one of the things they really pick up on.”

Trunk says that the key to a successful male revue is having a creative, well put together show. He did 75 to 80 percent of the choreography while the other guys helped out with the rest. A.J. also did the music mix and video editing as well as choosing the 14 segments performed in the show, which range from hip-hop to gangster routines and everything in between, serving up a musical buffet that ranges from rock to country.

While he says that the best things about what he does is making someone’s night on the Las Vegas Strip and helping people forget their problems and focus on something else, A.J. admits that there are very few downsides to it. He says that what he has learned in the 14 years of being in male revues is patience, keeping his head on straight, and how to focus and not give in to the temptations.

“I learned the business and it’s a job like anything else,” he advises. “You have to treat it like that to be successful. But it’s a lot of fun and there are a lot of perks. All of the guys in our show are single – and straight, by the way. Most of the guys I’ve worked with over the past 14 years have been straight although a lot of the shows in town have had guys in them that are bi or gay. For example, I think that the girls who go to the strip clubs – the Magic Mike type of experience, where it’s more risqué and there’s more interaction – feel better about themselves if a guy is gay. However, the guys I’ve worked with are horndogs who love to entertain women.”

So there you have it – if you’re into focusing on horndogs instead of corndogs, “Men The Experience” is a veritable buffet of delights.

This article appears by courtesy of Vegas Insider Daily.com.