It’s not a classic showroom; it’s a showroom and discotheque,” Amy Saunders says of Cheapshot, the 99-seat variety club opening in Downtown’s former Don’t Tell Mama space.
She considers a moment, then adds, “It’s kind of like a bawdy old bar.”
It will no doubt be that, thanks to its host and impresario. Saunders, known locally for the former Bally’s hit The Miss Behave Gameshow, can make any space a showplace. As a gold lame-clad master of ceremonies she can sweet-talk even the most drunken and obnoxious of crowds into rapt submission, and she holds a Guinness World Record for sword swallowing.
But Cheapshot, a collaboration between Saunders and Ryan Doherty’s Corner Bar group, is specifically built to be the kind of variety cabaret space the British-born Saunders has become accustomed to performing and producing shows in around the world. To a degree, the bawdiness is baked-in.
And Mavericks, Saunders’ “high-speed cornucopia of comedy, burlesque, circus, singing and more,” which opens at Cheapshot on April 1, should deliver the kind of sexy madness the once and future Miss Behave can bring with a hand tied behind her back.
“We’re starting with what I think that venue—and Downtown—could really use, which is a good old-fashioned variety show, just done faster,” Saunders says.
For just $25—a fraction of what you’d pay for a comparable Strip show—Cheapshot will give you 90 minutes of aerial routines, stand-up, juggling, drag and more. Mavericks will feel intimate, old-school and perhaps even slightly dangerous, and even if some performances repeat from night to night, no two shows will be alike.
“It’ll be down and dirty,” Saunders says. “I’ve always liked shows like that.”
The venue has still more to offer. On Tuesday, Wednesday and Sunday nights, Cheapshot will operate as a piano bar, featuring Viral Live star Sarah Hester Ross. And following Mavericks performances, the cabaret will transform into “a proper disco,” Saunders says, plainly relishing the way that word rolls off the tongue.
“[Vegas has] plenty of exclusive nightclubs, loud and big nightclubs. But there’s not that many that are just fun and easy and chill,” she says. “Ain’t nothing wrong with just a disco.”
She intends for the playlist to lean towards “20th century classics”—pop, punk, soul, funk, reggae, “everything [from] before 2000,” she chuckles—but promises that DJs will watch the crowd and give it what it wants.
“One of our taglines is ‘Everyone’s a VIP,’” Saunders says. “Everything’s welcome here, which means everybody’s got to be nice to everybody, because everybody’s OK.”
CHEAPSHOT 517 Fremont St. #110, cheapshotdtlv.com. Tuesday-Sunday, 7 p.m.-close.
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