And now, for something completely different.
That’s an old line from Monty Python, but in a way, it applies to something we’ve never seen before in the Fremont East Entertainment District.
For years, the district has evolved to include restaurants, bars, live music, retail.
Now it has Cheapshot and what has in just a few weeks become a very popular variety show on a tiny stage inside Cheapshot.
This all might sound a bit cryptic. So Amy Saunders is with us to help out. Saunders performed for the better part of four years at Ballys on the Las Vegas Strip as Miss Behave. The pandemic shut down that show and…
Well, we’ll let her take it from there.
"I'm a European girl. When I found downtown, Fremont East, I felt like I was home," she said. Years ago, she said she stared at Don't Tell Mama, the piano bar that used to occupy the Cheapshot space, and thought, "that is the perfect spot for everything."
Corner Bar Management owner Ryan Doherty said when his company bought the building housing the piano bar and Beauty Bar, he immediately called Saunders about doing a show.
"I just called up Amy and said, 'Hey, listen, I think a showroom would really work down here. I know you've said it a million times to me. Why don't we do it?' So we jumped in," he said. "We have plenty of bars and plenty of nightlife spots and the portfolio really needed something different and boy, was this different."
Saunders herself is a performer, sword swallower and rose from busking to hosting a show on the Strip. The Ballys show was "never the same show twice ... pretty punk for the Strip."
While technically from outside of the country, she's not an outsider in downtown, where she's lived for several years.
"The Fremont Street Experience is phenomenal to me. That is the best people watching in the world," she said. "And it's a beautiful example of when you put a pedestrian area there with beauty all around it. And by the way, I think Fremont Street is beautiful. You get people and then people can, in a way, respond and react like they do at a carnival."
Mavericks downtown is "accessible, affordable and constantly changing," she said. It's playing three nights a week at $25 a ticket.
"You can take variety into many different energies," she said, noting there's singing, burlesque, clowns, her own sword swallowing, and several special guests on any given performance.
"It's a gorgeous little show," she said.
Warning: Content may not be suitable for all audiences.
Video via VitalVegas/YouTube
Amy Saunders, performer, host, maestro of entertainment, Cheapshot; Ryan Doherty, owner, Corner Bar Management
