Donny Osmond’s award-winning Vegas show to visit Niagara Falls: interview
BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) – Legendary entertainer Donny Osmond will be performing in Niagara Falls, N.Y. on July 13 as part of his “Direct From Las Vegas” tour, which began on June 7.
Osmond is bringing his award-winning Las Vegas show on the road, making a stop at Seneca Niagara Event Center this month. Ahead of the show, he spoke with WIVB.com about the tour, his career, returning to Western New York and much more.
Osmond, who was recently awarded the title of ‘2024 Best Headliner’ by the Best of Vegas Awards, said he wanted to bring the show on tour because “not everybody can get to Vegas,” and he wanted as many people as possible to see the show. He said he “brought the whole [show] out” for the tour.
Osmond said he has pretty much done everything he ever wanted to do in entertainment, and now, it’s about taking things he’s already done and finding new ways to spin them.
An example he gave was the musical “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.” In the 1999 film, Osmond played the lead character Joseph, but this December, he will be performing in the role of the Pharaoh (Robert Torti in the 1999 film) on a U.K. tour.
Osmond also said how his current tour is a repackaging of everything he’s done across six decades presented in an entirely new way, in just two hours.
The second segment of the show, which Osmond calls “The Request Segment,” features 30 minutes of audience requests of any song from any of his 65 albums.
In Las Vegas, he is limited to a 90-minute show, as that’s what his contract stipulates, but on tour, he can do more songs and an expanded request segment, along with tributes to the Osmond Brothers and Andy Williams.
An extraordinary career
In addition to his 65 albums, Osmond has extended his storied career into TV, film, hosting and dancing, among other things. He recalled his favorite moments.
“I was the first Masked Singer, being Captain Shang in the Disney movie ‘Mulan’ is a big feather in the cap, ‘Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,’ winning ‘Dancing With the Stars,’ the ‘Puppy Love’ era, the ‘Donny & Marie’ show, ‘Andy Williams,’ ‘One Bad Apple’ with my brothers,” he said. “Where do you stop? Where do you start?”
Osmond said that in an interview he had done recently, the interviewer described the show as “so Americana,” meaning the show is nostalgic, yet current. Osmond noted the vast diversity of his crowds, and though they are mostly made up of fans from the “Puppy Love” era, he enjoys seeing people of all ages at the show.
“Lately, there’s been a lot of teenagers, a lot of little kids — they want to see Captain Shang, they want to see the peacock [from ‘The Masked Singer’],” he said. “It’s quite interesting with the demographics that come to my show lately.”
He remarked that younger generations have an advantage when it comes to finding new music with the existence of streaming services like Spotify and sites like YouTube.
Osmond recalled a recent Las Vegas show when a 10-year-old girl requested a song off his latest album, to which he asked if her mom prompted her to ask about it. The girl’s mother said that it was, in fact, the 10-year-old’s favorite song.
“So I got her onstage, 10 years old, and she sang it with me,” he said. “She knew every word of the song. It was the cutest thing.”
As for his favorite song, Osmond compared it to picking a favorite child.
“Interesting question, because which decade are you talking about? Which career are you talking about? I’ve had like seven, eight, nine different careers,” he said. “But the second song I sing in the setlist is ‘Puppy Love.’ I immediately have to do that because, for a certain generation, that’s what they know me for.”
Though picking a favorite song might be near impossible, what’s not impossible for Osmond to decide is where he wants to go when in the Niagara Falls area, as he said he likes visit Maple Leaf Fudge at Niagara-on-the-Lake, deeming it his “favorite place to get fudge.”
Going above and beyond
Osmond has been working with the charitable organization City of Hope, a research and treatment center for people with diabetes and with cancer. For this tour, $1 from the sale of each ticket is being donated to the organization.
“One of the first things I did when I put this tour together was I took a tour of City of Hope and I said, ‘I’ve got to do something to help raise funds for cancer and diabetes research,'” he said. “We’ve literally raised hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars just from [ticket sales], and it’s just the beginning.”
He and his wife Debbie told the board they wanted to be a part of the mission and be a part for a long time.
Tickets to Osmond’s show are still available and can be purchased at this link. The interview can be seen below.
Adam Duke is a digital contributor who joined WIVB in 2021. See more of his work here.
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