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The evening of glamour presented in "The Rat Pack Live at the Sands" is fiction - but perhaps it's the show everyone wishes would have happened.
The British production re-enacts an evening at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas in the early 1960s, featuring actors portraying such iconic performers as Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr. and Dean Martin. The show demonstrates the friendships of the performers and captures a moment in American history and culture, says London resident director and choreographer Mitch Sebastian.
"It's really a time capsule that enhances all those things," Sebastian said in a phone interview from London. "All their original arrangement, songs, their dialogues within it are accurate and actually happened, but not necessarily in that way. It's all the highlights, compiled into fiction."
The show was originally intended as a concert celebrating the music of Sinatra and Co. Sebastian was commissioned as the show's choreographer. He became so enthused by his initial research of the era that he proposed the show become a play rather than a concert. "There was a fascinating back story in the way they all came to that place in their lives and as individuals," he said.
What evolved was a performance hybrid - or as Sebastian describes it, a play that masquerades as entertainment.
After its first British show in 2000, the show went on to play London's West End for six weeks in 2002, where its run was extended to four years. Now a handful of companies are touring the show around the world and in New York City. The "Rat Pack" comes to Salt Lake City's Kingsbury Hall on Oct. 7, with the run continuing through Oct. 12.
Its appeal may come from the fact that it harkens back to a time when men were really gentlemen. "It's certainly a macho show, even a little misogynistic at times," Sebastian joked. "For the women (in the audience), they want to be with them. And the men, they want to be them."
The way the show is arranged is brilliant, said David Hayes, the actor/singer who plays Sammy Davis Jr. The first half of the show emphasizes who the men were, while the second half portrays what they did. "Whatever they did, we do," Hayes said. "It's a very authentic show, an enactment of these massive icons."
Hayes called Davis his "entertainment hero," a man ahead of his time when it came to breaking racial barriers. "He had a personality that was just contagious," said Hayes, recalling a time he met the singer and received a nod of approval for his impersonation.