Feldman said Mirage is working on a severance program for employees that he expected to be completed by week's end.

Mirage spokeswoman Jenn Michaels said, "The decision was made (to close the show) so they (employees) can protect themselves and their families," noting that workers are eligible for unemployment benefits.

"As we speak, our human resources department is developing a program to help place them in other positions. Cirque du Soleil is opening a show at the MGM Grand next summer and they hire technical people locally."

Also, Michaels said, Steve Wynn, former owner of the Mirage who contracted Siegfried & Roy to open the resort's showroom in 1990, "has stepped up to hire people from the show" for the opening of his Wynn Las Vegas in 2005.

Mark Riddell, spokesman for Feld Entertainment, the Virginia-based producers of the Siegfried & Roy show, said the company "well exceeded" its contractual arrangements with the show's dancers by paying them one week's severance pay and covering their medical benefits through the end of October.

"Each contract with the dancers is an individual contract with different provisions," Riddell said, noting that some may have gotten benefits that others did not, depending on the deals they negotiated.

"We are providing assistance to place them in our other productions," Riddell said, noting that Feld produces two units of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus and the "Disney on Ice" show.