ENTERTAINMENT: Local show filling seats

Impersonators draw big crowds to Suncoast

When they moved to the Summerlin area a couple of months ago to give their new show at the Suncoast a chance, Tom Stevens and Dave Salera didn't expect to be playing to capacity audiences every week. They just wanted a chance to get on stage and perform what they have been practicing for much of their lives.

But instead of the duo's reasonable aspirations, "Frank, Dean & Friends" starring Salera as Frank Sinatra and Stevens as Dean Martin has become something of a phenomenon at the Suncoast showroom. The one-hour, 20-minute musical tribute plays at 2 and 7 p.m. Mondays and Tuesdays, and performances have been packed since the show opened about eight weeks ago.

Not only are area residents turning out in droves, but they frequently leave the show raving about the performers' dead-on vocal impressions.

"We've had a few ladies coming out after the show that want to talk to us about it," said Suncoast chief of security Dick Tomasso. "They come out and say to me, 'You really should inform the audience if there's going to be lip-syncing instead of live singing.' I spent a half hour one day trying to convince this lady that they're not lip-syncing, they're real."

Salera and Stevens agreed the show's success is a surprise to them as well, although a very pleasant one.

"We're just tickled," Salera said. "To have regulars coming back and people thinking we're lip-syncing, that's the ultimate compliment. And to go from playing the Elks lodge back home to an actual Vegas showroom, and a full one, is amazing."

But the story behind "Frank, Dean & Friends" is not a tale of overnight success.

Salera, from Pittsburgh, is 45 years old and has been impersonating Sinatra since he was 29. He played in rock bands until his older brother influenced him to sing Sinatra's music, and Salera heavily studied the mannerisms and vocal style of the crooning icon. He first met Stevens on stage at the Dean Martin Festival in Steubenville, Ohio, last year.

Stevens, 44 years old and from Florida, has been performing all his life and doing so as Martin since he was 25. An experienced comedian and vocal impressionist as well as a singer, Stevens is just as known for being "the man of 100 voices" as he is for his Dean Martin duplication, although his similar looks to Martin have made that his most popular act.

Stevens actually joined Salera on stage, unannounced, during the festival in Steubenville, and the two immediately jived off each other. Manager Joe DiAlbert helped bring the duo together, and plans for a Frank and Dean show were under way.

"I had wanted to do a Frank and Dean show for a long time, and we had both been doing our own thing for so long that we were very experienced," Stevens said. "The first time I heard Dave singing as Frank, I couldn't believe my ears. I was floored. I knew he was the guy."

Their show, which is coordinated and directed by Stevens' wife, Perla, also incorporates Stevens' other impressions into the act. A tribute to Sammy Davis Jr. is included when Stevens returns to the stage as not Dean but Sammy, and he also spoofs the concept of Sinatra's duets album by doing several rapid fire impressions of celebrities that wanted to sing on the record but were turned away.

"I still get a kick out of watching him do that, every time," Salera said. The "Hollywood karaoke," as Stevens refers to it, includes his mimicking of John Wayne, Bill Cosby, Jimmy Stewart and Bill Clinton.

Neither Stevens nor Salera had ever performed in Las Vegas before, despite it being the home of the Rat Pack in the old Vegas era of the 1960s. They had their first audition to an audience of just Coast Resorts officials, and then waited a few months before being invited to give the free show a trial run for the summer.

"Frank, Dean & Friends" has since been renewed through 2002, and talks are under way to have the duo possibly perform at other Coast properties.

"I guess the traditional free showroom show doesn't happen a lot anymore in Vegas," Stevens said. "For Coast Resorts to offer a show like this to its customers is very generous."


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