“110 In The Shade” isn’t just a musical by Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt. It is also the temperature in the parking garages along the four miles of Nevada’s Las Vegas Boulevard known as “The Strip.”

It is a good thing that each of those garages is connected to a hotel/casino where the air conditioning is on high and the technology of show business is making new strides in sophistication.

Vegas fans love to expound on how their city is “the fastest growing” in the nation, with a population approaching 2 million. In fact, the strip is in the midst of a befuddling building boom, a maze of construction projects amid phantasmagorical edifices including replicas of the Empire State Building, Chrysler Building, Statue of Liberty and Brooklyn Bridge, the Eiffel Tower, the canals of Venice and the pyramids of Egypt.

Most people think of “Vegas” as a gambling or resort destination. Few think of it as a theater destination. That may be changing. A recent five-day, nine-show visit provided evidence of a growing trend toward bigger and more technologically sophisticated spectacles.

That’s not the same thing as “theater” per se. In the traditional Vegas venues and the specially constructed theaters at the Bellagio, Mirage, Treasure Island, MGM Grand, Wynn Las Vegas, New York, New York and the Venetian (to name just a baker’s half dozen of the 28 show-hosting hotels) there are spectacles to astonish the eye, music to please the ear and physical feats to thrill the spirit – even if there isn’t a lot of the human heart that is the hallmark of the plays that real theater-lovers love.

Still, the range of options is head and shoulders above the scene the rat pack of Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin and Peter Lawford presided over half a century ago.

You can still find girlie shows in Vegas where at least half of the bodies of half the cast are dressed only in baubles, bangles and beads. Usually it’s the upper half that is exposed at “Follies Bergere,” “Jubilee!” and even Cirque du Soleil’s “Zumanity.”

Now, as the 21st century gets underway, Vegas is rolling out a different brand of titillation. There are three classifications of evening entertainment to draw you to Vegas and away from the gaming tables: star shows, spectaculars and slightly reduced but often beefed-up versions of Broadway musicals.

Star shows remain a big draw in Vegas. Toni Braxton holds forth at the Flamingo, Wayne Newton can be found at Harrah’s, and Barry Manilow is at the Hilton. Of course there are also specialty acts like David Copperfield and Penn and Teller to be found along the strip.

A new twist to the star show has begun to take hold, drawing from both the traditions of light-show illuminated rock or country star tours and technology-intensive theater shows. Franco Dragone, who first made his name staging the unique combination of circus and spectacle that made Cirque du Soleil famous, directed a spectacle show for Celine Dione in a specially-constructed 4,000-seat theater at Caesar’s Palace in 2003. It is still going strong after selling over two million tickets.

Dragone is one of the forces who has shaped current trends in Las Vegas’ unique approach to show business. He staged the first Cirque du Soleil show in town: the classy combination of clowns, acrobats, strength acts, visual splendor and new-wave music called “Mystère” which opened its own theater at the Treasure Island hotel/casino in 1993. It is still running today with its baby clown act, the aerial cube, Chinese poles and trampolines. If you are tempted to catch it, make sure you get seats that are not on the extreme left side of the house where some of the baby act is totally obscured. Tickets to the 95-minute show run $60 to $95 (plus tax).

Dragone followed that first Vegas Cirque spectacular with even more astonishment for the eye: “O” (the phonetic equivalent of the French word for water, “eau”), a water show in a specially constructed theater at the Bellagio with a 1.5 million gallon pool as its stage. Inside the pool are three massive hydraulic lifts that maneuver separate portions of a stage floor that can be dry above water level one moment, just below the surface so a clown can run across the water the next, and deep enough to allow a high dive into the same spot the next.

“O” has 85 artists doing nearly too many things to look at during its 95 minutes. Indeed, at times Dragone’s direction pulls your attention away from a key trick or effect to another part of the stage at just the wrong moment. Still, with its bright, musically varied score, its cheery disposition, lovely visual effects and sometimes astonishing physical feats, the cumulative effect is exactly what is advertised – spectacular.

Recently, Dragone opened yet another water spectacle. This one, called “La Rêve,” is across the street at the five-star resort/tower/casino/showplace built by Vegas developer Steve Wynn which he calls simply Wynn Las Vegas. Here, in a pool-in-the-round theater, you can watch all the feats of balance, strength, tumbling, synchronized swimming, diving and clowning along with amazing water effects including drenching torrential downpours and foaming bubbles – not to mention flights of live homing pigeons – from plush lounge seats with chocolate covered strawberries and champagne poured for you by hostesses in the “Champagne Circle” for $175 a seat. For “just” $99 (plus tax) you can sit in the “cheap seats” – the “splash zone” of the first two rows where you feel as well as see the water show. The rest of the seats go for $119 plus tax.

“La Rêve” isn’t the only show playing at Wynn Las Vegas. Steve Wynn has also been a mover in the effort to bring Broadway to Vegas. A version of the 2005 Tony Award winning musical comedy “Spamalot” has its own 1,600-seat theater just down the corridor. It has all the glitz and pizzazz of its Broadway incarnation and even benefits from the trimming to bring it down to just over an hour and a half. In addition to dropping the 15 minute intermission, the producers cut about 20 minutes from the show that had a bit too much going on anyway.

Another Broadway musical that has a Las Vegas version in residence is Andrew Lloyd Webber’s mega-hit known as “Phantom of the Opera” on Broadway. Perhaps the people at the Venetian thought the word “opera” would keep people away – here it is called “Phantom: The Las Vegas Spectacular.”

Director Harold Prince streamlined the production and spent mega-bucks making the mega-musical more visually thrilling. The falling chandelier, which on Broadway and in touring versions of the show has always seemed rather clunky as it falls ever so slowly toward the stage in what is termed “the famous disaster,” here seems to freefall directly onto the heads of those fortunate enough to be sitting in the center section of the orchestra.

They didn’t fix all the clunky effects, however. The mirror through which the Phantom abducts the heroine still provides some in the audience with views of actors standing in the wings waiting their cue or of the conductor in the orchestra pit. Oh, but that orchestra sounds glorious given the acoustics of this house which is reported to have cost $45 million. The production is said to have run an additional $35 million. Compare that with Broadway where the most expensive musical yet produced has probably not cost much above $15 million.

If specially constructed theaters housing special effects extravaganzas are your thing, check out Cirque du Soleil’s “Ka” at MGM Grand. Here Cirque tries to blend its mixture of high tech and circus thrills with the theatrical tradition of actually telling a story with a linear, literal plot. The effort doesn’t quite work as drama, but it certainly has eye-popping visuals. At one point, a 25-foot-by-50-foot stage floor rotates up to a vertical position so the audience can get an overhead view of a battle complete with computer generated waves triggered by every footfall of each combatant.

The newest show of note is “Love” which not only is a treat for the eye; it provides the greatest sonic experience of the Beatles’ music ever. The Beatles’ original record producer, George Martin, and his son, Giles, have taken the individual tracks from the recording session multi-track master tapes and digitized each in order to remix them, providing cleaner, clearer and sharper sound and at the same time, better balance between the vocals and among the instruments.

With 6,500 speakers (including the speakers in each of the 2,200 seats) the sound system on which they play the results is incredible. The technicians claim that with all those speakers in the seats and a 25-by-5 surround sound system, the sound quality any place in the house is as good as any other. I only saw the show once, so I can’t judge the accuracy of that claim – but I’d be willing to go back for a few dozen performances in other seats in order to report back.

A show I would not be willing to sit through again is “Zumanity” which is billed as “The Sensual Side of Cirque du Soleil.” While “sensual” seems to offer the beauty of the human form and the tender side of sexuality, the show concentrates more on kink and sleaze, punctuated by raunchy humor.

Perhaps that illustrates the range of offerings on today’s Las Vegas Strip.

There really is something for everyone – well, everyone who values spectacle and pizzazz.

For drama and the human heart that is the hallmark of traditional theatrical fare, you may have to go off the strip for now. There is a developing theatre community catering mostly to the residents of the city instead of the tourists flocking to the big houses on Las Vegas Boulevard. If you have a yen for such a thing while visiting Nevada’s largest city, check out the Nevada Conservatory Theatre on the campus of the University of Las Vegas.

Brad Hathaway is the theater columnist for The Hill Rag/DC North. He is also the editor/reviewer for Potomac Stages, a Web site and e-mail service covering theater in Washington, Maryland and Virginia (www.PotomacStages.com). He has covered theater for Theatre.Com, Musical Stages Online, The Connection Newspapers and such magazines as American Theatre, Show Music, the Sondheim Review and Entertainment Design. He and his wife live on Capitol Hill. He can be reached by e-mail at Brad@PotomacStages.com.