O (Cirque du Soleil)

O
Logo for Cirque du Soleil's O
Company	Cirque du Soleil
Genre	Contemporary circus
Show type	Resident show
Date of premiere	October 17, 1998
Location	The Bellagio, Las Vegas
Creative team
Writer and director	Franco Dragone
Director of creation	Gilles Ste-Croix
Set designer	Michel Crête
Composer	Benoit Jutras
Costume designer	Dominique Lemieux
Lighting designer	Luc Lafortune
Choreographer	Debra Brown
Sound designers	François Bergeron Jonathan Deans
Artistic director	Rob Bollinger
Synchronized swimming designer	Sylvie Fréchette
Aerial acrobatics designer	André Simard
Rigging designer	Jacque Paquin
Make-up designer	Nathalie Gagné
Other information
Preceded by	Quidam (1996)
Succeeded by	La Nouba (1998)
Official website

O is a water-themed stage production by Cirque du Soleil, a Canadian circus and entertainment company. The show has been in permanent residence at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States, since October 1998. O, whose name is pronounced the same way as eau, the French word for "water", takes place in, around and above a 1.5-million-US-gallon (5,700 m³) pool of water, featuring water acts such as synchronized swimming as well as aerial and ground acts. The O theatre, which is designed to resemble a 14th-century European opera house, has 1,800 seats, thus allowing the performance to be watched by 3,600 people a night since the performance usually plays twice in a given day, also designed to meet the special demands of the show.

O was inspired by the "infinity and elegance of water's pure form," which pays tribute to the beauty of the theater. A group of 150 stage technicians assist in the production of the show, the cast of which is 85 performers: international acrobats, synchronized swimmers, and divers. Some of them are former Olympic athletes.

Since late October 2010, Cirque du Soleil has offered backstage tours of the O theatre. The experience allows visitors to see the backstage wings, training rooms, costume workshop, break area, underwater lighting area, and go up to a catwalk into the sound and lighting booths. Not every experience will be the same as the tour is conducted around a "regular day", so performers may or may not be training, rehearsing, or even working out.

As of early 2011, O has grossed over a billion dollars since the show opening in 1998.

O has received many awards, including the following:

O had its 8,000th performance on 20 July 2015.

The show has a cast of 85 acrobats, synchronized swimmers and divers performing in and above a 1.5 million-gallon pool. When maintenance needs to be performed, the pool is drained in about 12 hours to the Bellagio Lake, causing the lake's water level to rise 1 inch (25 mm). The pool is kept at 88 °F (31 °C) and has an underwater communication system and regulators that allow performers to breathe underwater. Every member of the cast is scuba-certified.

The underwater stage lift was produced by Handling Specialty. In order for the platform stage to rise and fall in the water without a wake, the surface of the stage has thousands of tiny holes which were drilled out by the Cirque du Soleil team.