For a diva, it's home

The rest of the world flocks here for gluttony and debauchery, to eat, drink, and be merry. Céline Dion is descending upon Sin City for the exact opposite reason: To be ordinary.

Indeed, as the world's top-selling female recording artist begins her three-year run at the Caesar's Palace Hotel-Casino next Tuesday, she joins a performing community dominated, ironically, by homebodies. A city built on fast times and loose morals, it turns out, is one of the few places where those who strut their stuff on stage can find stability and normalcy.

Ms. Dion herself is departing from the usual trajectory for a pop star of her magnitude by hunkering down in a $95 million, 4,000-seat theater for an extended period. She's told countless interviewers that her aim, aside from the new creative challenge of starring in a Vegas-style spectacle, was to be able to play mom to her toddler son by day, diva to her thousands of adoring fans by night.

That's a decision familiar to comedienne Rita Rudner, who adopted a daughter, 8-month-old Molly, last year with her husband, Martin Bergman. Ms. Rudner, now 46, put off having a family for decades as she built her career, which she said required constant travel and odd hours.

When she landed a permanent show at the New York-New York Hotel-Casino in 2001 that included a theater built just for her, she and Bergman realized she could be a star and a good parent at the same time thanks to a fixed schedule and a mere 10-minute commute to her "office."

"In Las Vegas, we can live and work in the same place here, which is very unusual for entertainers," explains Rudner, who will start taping a half-hour syndicated talk show, "Ask Rita," here this spring. "When you're a comedienne, you usually are on the road constantly to make a living. Here, you stay in one place and the people travel to you."

The worst-kept secret about southern Nevada is, the performers say, that there's a surprisingly livable community beyond the blinding neon of the Las Vegas Strip. Even as 4,000 people a month continue to move to this fastest-growing region of the United States, most Americans scratch their heads at the idea of living within proximity of such decadence.

"When I take visitors and show them what the Las Vegas Valley can offer and what the surrounding area can offer, they understand that this place is more than just the Strip," says Tina Walsh, star of "Mamma Mia!," a version of the ABBA-based musical also playing on Broadway. "It's really a beautiful part of the country."

One reason well-known performers like Dion and Rudner are willing to settle in for long runs in Las Vegas is that the age-old stigma of the Strip as a graveyard for fading show-business careers has been replaced with a hipper and more youthful image.

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