Sarah Hester Ross craves much more than TikTok fame

Sarah Hester Ross leans into the mic, plays a lick on the piano and explains her fame.

“I’m TikTok famous,” Ross tells the audience during a show at the MGM Grand’s Underground theater. “It’s the worst kind of famous, because it’s the kind of fame no one gives a s- - - about.”

That’s Ross in a nutty nutshell. The line gets a big laugh. This crowd knows its social media.

Ross is the featured guest star in the “Viva Las Lucy and Sarah” cabaret show. The room is usually home to modern-day comic mime Tape Face. Brad Garrett’s Comedy Club originally occupied this space, followed by Mike Tyson’s one-man show a few years back.

Tonight, it’s Carisa Hendrix as Lucy Darling, a socialite-type performer and herself a TikTok hit. Her quirky videos have drawn more than 1.5 million followers on that platform, where Ross has amassed 2.5 million followers.

That name recognition led to a seven-show, limited engagement at the MGM Grand. The turnout is solid but not sold out. The fast, robust responses to the duo’s shtick are instant.

Ross opens the show, arriving unannounced through the center of the crowd. She engages Hendrix in comic back-and-forth, plays music behind scenes, chats up audience members called to the stage and takes the spotlight alone at the piano. Audience members fire song titles at her, and she races through tunes, “I’m Just a Girl” by No Doubt in this case, on the fly. Dueling pianos without the duel.

Ross’ next Las Vegas solo show, the “Sarah’s Strip” Halloween production, will be Wednesday at The Composers Room in Commercial Center. Guest stars will include singer-comic actress Maren Wade, late of “Lady Like” at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas’ 24 Oxford; stand-up comic Jeaux King (hah); burlesque performer Charlie Quinn Starling (known for her turn as the Green Fairy in “Absinthe”), drag queen Jaye Mansfield, horror burlesque specialist Mr. Big Stuart, and magician AnnaRose Einarsen.

Her next performance with Hendrix is a sellout, Nov. 6 at the 1,400-seat theater at Gila River Wild Horse Pass casino in Chandler, Arizona.

A ‘duel’ threat

Ross moved to Las Vegas a decade ago to be with her beau, powerhouse rock singer Andrew Freeman, who arrived in Las Vegas as part of the “Raiding the Rock Vault” show. He’s a hide-behind-something-solid vocalist, having toured with The Offspring and fronted Last in Line. You feel Freeman is the inspiration for another of Ross’ zingers. She says, “Tape Face is one of my favorite shows on the Strip. I adore a silent man.”

Independently, the 40-year-old Ross has carved a successful stage career around town at such haunts at Notoriety Live and in her fiery performances at the Bar at Times Square at New York-New York. If you’ve ever heard her salty stage patter, you understand why the show at The Composers Room is 18-and-over, “Not for the kiddies,” as she says.

She took off on social media during the pandemic shutdown. Her home-produced “Florida Man Friday” videos found an instant audience on all her social platforms.

The bit: Ross reads actual news stories out of Florida (she’s from Tampa originally) to piano accompaniments. This is where you enter “Florida Man” and your birthday, and you get a wild, yet true, story out of the Sunshine State. Ross turned it into online entertainment.

“I think that I really can chalk it up to luck that I just grew so fast in the numbers,” Ross says. “Everybody was just focused on their phones because they had nothing else to do … hence my rise to mediocre stardom.”

Last year, Ross released “Don’t Mess With a Redhead” on major streaming platforms, Apple TV+ and Amazon among them. She tours small theaters while still playing spot dates in Las Vegas. Her dueling pianos experience has honed her ability to hold a crowd with her musicianship, vocal prowess and improv skills.

‘I want a big show’

Ross is a classic example of how underappreciated the dueling piano format is.

“Dealing with drunk toddlers is probably the hardest thing about dueling pianos,” Ross says. “I’m a musician at heart, and I love playing music and learning music. So that wasn’t the hard part, sitting down and learning popular songs and memorizing them. But it’s music, improv comedy, all at the same time without any through-line or practice.”

Ross has mastered an instrument that cannot help but bring a smile to your face, the keytar. It just looks unusual, kind of a walk-around synthesizer, strange in its shape, not quite as cool as a Fender or Gibson guitar.

But it suits Ross fine.

“I’ve just tucked her away for now,” Ross says. “She’s not gone. She’s just napping. I haven’t figured out a place for her in this new vibe of what I’m doing. She’s definitely part of my aesthetic.”

She wants to create a comedy-music production that can play long term in a Vegas venue. She says she’s not a stand-up, not built for a comedy club format. She’s not a social media phenomenon, either. At least not entirely.

“Oh, it’s definitely not enough for me, and it never will be enough,” Ross says of her online success. “It was right place, right time. But I would really like to do the show that I’m doing as a sit-down, with a full band or orchestra. I want a big room. I want a big show. I want lights, camera, action.”