BY BILL GIDUZ

 

Dick Franco has landed a juggler's dream job - creating, writing and co­starring in a full-length Las Vegas show on a brand new high-tech stage. As icing on the cake, so to speak, the subject of the whole show is food!

 

Franco began working in early March as Chef Rio, the bumbling but loveable side­kick to Rio Rita in a new dinner show at the Rio Suites Hotel. The hotel, which showcases its outstanding food in several gourmet restaurants, recently doubled its size and built a new 430-seat auditorium for an innovative two-hour dinner show. Producers Blair and Eunice Farrington were impressed with Franco's concept for the production, and hired him to help them create it. Rehearsals began at the first of December, and it took two weeks alone to film portions of the show which will appear on giant video walls which flank the room.

 

Franco and his co-star, singer/dancer Mary Jo Coyle, appear almost continuously during the show, and Franco's wife, Carlene, plays his loyal assistant, Rosie. Franco and Coyle personify the hotel's Latin-themed cartoon mascots and entertain diners as their supper is prepared in front of their eyes and served to them. A live band also accompanies the culinary presentation.

 

Franco is on stage physically for 70 minutes, and appears on the video walls for another 20. At times he leaves the stage and Rita, live, talks to his video image on the walls as he appears in the video kitchen to check on a dish. She carries on a conversation with his oversized image, giving the live Franco a chance to change costumes for his next appearance.

 

"The whole show is comedy tongue-in­cheek and concerns food," Franco explained. His juggling routines include spinning a 24-inch pizza on top of an ever­lengthening pole, stacking 14 cigar boxes decorated like food boxes, flipping pancakes in a frying pan, juggling three objects plucked from a basket of fruit, doing ping-pong ball spitting with "eggs," and juggling rings that pop up out of a giant, smoking toaster. He also sings "Solo Mio" in time to the rhythm of six shaker cups and plays a marimba by hitting it with mallets as he juggles them.

 

"I play this buffoon character, but I get a lot of sympathy from the audience," Franco said. 'I'm bumbling around in the middle of all these girls dancing when they come out as vegetables brought to life. That's right before the main course, and we all end up in a big salad bowl."

 

Franco said he is excited about his instrumental part in such an innovative project. "There's nothing like this show or showroom anywhere in Las Vegas." he said.