Teen Showgirl, Las Vegas Sun

Showgirl/schoolgirl: Teen gets A’s by day, bravos by night Lisa Sciortino Friday, May 31, 1996 | 5:57 a.m. By the soft light of a mirrored makeup table, Angelina McCoy scans a few pages of her U.S. history textbook. Her worn backpack sticks out beneath a row of glittery costumes on the floor. Usually, Angelina finishes her homework in the afternoons before heading to work. But on this recent evening, the Chaparral High School junior, amid the jumble of hairbrushes, styling tools and eye color palettes, was playing catch-up between "Enter the Night" performances at the Stardust. So much for the glamorous life of a showgirl. At least this one. At 17, Angelina is one of the youngest principal dancers on the Strip. She landed the spot last year when she and her buddies were searching for summer jobs and heard about the show's casting call. "I just went to the audition and I made it," she says. Now the slim brunette is one of the long-legged beauties who appears in several of the show's high-energy numbers. She and the rest of the cast jazz it up in the opening number -- sort of an ode to the '40s -- and tap, tap, tap during the show's fun, water-filled finale. "I can't believe I'm doing this," she says during the break, her dark eyes sparkling from behind the big, Betty Boopish false lashes. "I think it's so neat. I love my job." Despite the exhausting balancing act of being a schoolgirl by day and a showgirl at night. Her weekdays start at 6 a.m. and don't stop till the last show's over -- around midnight. There isn't much doubt which shift she'd pick, if she had the choice. Here's a hint: It's not school. "I kind of dread going," she says. "I just know that I have to finish. ... I have to graduate because there have been (showgirls) that haven't graduated. You never know what's gonna happen in the future and you have to be smart." No problem there. She's a straight-A student. To work, though, she has to keep it that way. That was the deal with her parents. "They didn't want me to go. They wanted me to wait until I graduated from high school. They don't want me to grow up too fast," she says. In fact, they even put the brakes on letting her drive, opting to chauffeur her to and from work every night. "My dad, every time I mention to him about letting me drive, he's like, 'No, you've grown up fast enough.'" But Angelina doesn't think the job has put her life on fast-forward. "I still feel the same. I wish that I was older, but I'll get there soon enough." It may seem like forever sometimes. "Like when I can't go out after the show," she says. "They all go out to the bar and stuff." Or when the other dancers remind her to do her homework. "They don't really treat me like I'm a baby," she says. It's more "like I'm their little sister. Mostly, they just look out for me." But when she's around her teenage pals, they do typical teenage stuff. She usually heads to the mall on Fridays (the show's dark night) to spend some of her $600-plus weekly paycheck. "I have a lot of clothes and a lot of shoes," she says. Prima ballerina She recently took over the featured spot in "Enter's" sexy show-stopper, "Unforgettable," at the request of her partner, Chet Kelsey. The veteran dancer, who has performed on the "Solid Gold" television show and in the "Jubilee" and "Lido de Paris" productions, had kept a technical eye on Angelina "from the time she came into the show." "She's just got a gift that's rare," he says of her budding talent, noting how she learned the ballet-inspired routine in just three rehearsals. "A lot of it is just her technical ability. I've never seen anything like her." "Unforgettable," a classy duet, features several mind-blowing contortionist-type moves that have Angelina flipping, high-kicking and stretching across the stage. At one point, she hangs upside down with Kelsey's help. But what she likes most is it has allowed her to get back to her true love, ballet. Classically trained by her mother, Janine Illane, ballet mistress for the Las Vegas Civic Ballet, Angelina performed for five years with Civic and has also appeared with the Opus Dance Ensemble and the Nevada Dance Theatre. "I miss the ballet a lot," she says. "I think the ballet is just the prettiest form of art and I miss doing it, I miss wearing the ballet costumes." Someday she'd like to join a professional ballet company. She's kicked around the idea of moving to New York after graduation to pursue her dream, "but I like working here so much. It would be really hard." Civic is also where then-production coordinator Terry Lovern, now "Enter the Night's" production manager, first spotted Angelina's talent. Even when she was just 11 years old, "She had a beautiful face. She was a little kid but you knew she was going to do something," he recalls. These days, Lovern admits to being "harder on her than some of the other employees, just because I expect more out of her. She's an example of what we (at Civic) groomed, and I don't want her to be a bad example." Learning the ropes He was also "hesitant" at first about putting Angelina in the challenging "Unforgettable" number, since she still "has a lot to learn, definitely," about being a showgirl. "She's good, but when you're a featured performer, you need to know how to be an actress, too. She's doing well considering that much has happened that quickly." But there is at least one thing setting Angelina apart from other female dancers: clothing. By law, she has to keep hers on during the partially topless show. "That's what I get from everybody at school, 'Are you topless?'" she says. "At first I was like, 'Wow, that's a lot of nudity,' but I guess I had never really seen too many topless shows." The show's spectacular, modern dance-themed "Laser Number," for which she is an understudy, usually features a topless dancer. "But I do it with a top on," she says, and plans to continue doing so even after she turns 18. "I don't think there's anything wrong with (nudity), but I don't think I'll ever go topless. I don't think it's really necessary." Neither is flaunting her cool job to others. "I don't, but my friends do," she says. "They're like, 'Do you know she works here and she's a principal dancer?' I'm constantly reminded of it." But that's OK. "I'm proud of my job," she says.