Wynn Las Vegas Debuts The New Lake of Dreams

Entertainment returns to Wynn Las Vegas with the new Lake of Dreams, the only show to debut this fall anywhere on The Strip.

Staged outdoors in an environmental theater with open-air patios for viewing, Lake of Dreams is uniquely suited for a socially distanced experience while providing all the glamour, excitement, and larger-than-life spectacle visitors expect from a Las Vegas show.

In development for two years, the new Lake of Dreams is an immersive theatrical journey that unfolds over 12 high-tech artistically diverse new acts that combine magic, lights, film, music, sculpture, and puppetry.

Fifteen years after Lake of Dreams first opened in 2005, the original artistic team of world-renowned creators reunited for the 2020 reimagining, including director Kenny Ortega, production designer Michael Curry, and lighting designer Patrick Woodroffe. Joining the principal team are sound designer Peter Hylenski and video design director Gary Jaeger.

To deliver the show during a pandemic and overcome international travel restrictions, all artists and engineers worked remotely as much as possible with Woodroffe directing lighting virtually from his studio in London, and Ortega and Curry taking turns overseeing the show’s direction and installation at the resort alongside Wynn’s entertainment general manager Rick Gray.

Ortega said:

Artistic collaboration, imagination, and innovation in technology have inspired our journey over the past two years to bring all-new state-of-the-art entertainment to Lake of Dreams.

In this lush and serene mountain-scape, waterfall, and lake environment, towering puppetry and animatronics burst to life. This one-of-a-kind living theatre features music, filmed live action, animation, visual effects, and inspired production design coming together in a dazzling spectacle of light and magic.

Joining the cast of characters are several new remarkably engineered animatronics. Taking center stage are Lady Birds, a trio of 28-feet-tall, 17,000-pound festooned show-stopping songbirds who are always the life of the party; and Astronaut, a space explorer navigating her way through an interstellar mission during one of the show’s most ambitious sequences that combines all of the theater’s new technology. Lake of Dreams wouldn’t be complete, however, without Singing Frog, the iconic 30-foot amphibian and original cast member who was rebuilt with advanced robotics and returns with a dapper new look.

Entertainment returns to Wynn Las Vegas with the new Lake of Dreams, the only show to debut this fall anywhere on The Strip. Photo credit: Eric Jamison

Highlights of new digital characters are Emoji Orbs, a duo of whimsical emoticons who joyfully express their love for each other; Electra, the show’s celestial emcee made of pure light who flies through the air to interact with the audience; and The Swimmer, an underwater live action film sequence that follows a mythical mermaid. The new Lake of Dreams is backed by an equally fresh soundtrack of modern pop hits and classic standards including “Born This Way,” “Lady Marmalade,” “Side Effects,” “New York, New York,” “I Got You Babe,” a stirring original cover of “Space Oddity,” and many more.