Manhattan lounge act: A weekly cabaret show to become staple of storied Salt Lake City club

Click photo to enlarge

Britani Cavaness performs at a cabaret-style show at Manhattan Club in downtown Salt Lake City.

• «
• 1
• 2
• »

It hasn't been difficult for Kevin Christensen to find enough singers to perform in his newly launched cabaret shows. He's already heard from 72 local singers, and the auditions continue.

"I'm at the beginning of something pretty good," said Christensen, creator of the cabaret-style show Cast Party SLC. "One of my goals is to create a community of performers. There's better chemistry if they are rooting for each other."

Christensen was inspired to launch the local show by his late wife, Nan Larner, a former cabaret performer. He's worked locally as a musician since the early 1980s, and decided to put his expertise to work. "It's pretty hard to name a song written before 1960s that I don't know. I've made myself an expert over the years of the hit parade and Billboard charts."

Whatever you think a cabaret show is, know this: It's not improv or karaoke. The setup provides a platform for singers to perform not a recital or concert, but a show that employs their personality and charisma.

"Cabaret is really an actor's medium," he said. "It's less about the music than it is about the intimate nature of working with an audience and delivering a song. It's all about taking a song, doing it live and making a connection with the audience."

It took about a year of arrangements to set up Cast Party SLC, which was launched earlier this spring at the Salt Lake Acting Company, before moving in May to the Manhattan Club, 5 E. 400

The club provides a good backdrop for cabaret shows, Christensen said, given its venerable history as one of Utah's oldest nightclubs, and its history as a place where greats such as Lena Horne, Frank Sinatra and Louis Armstrong have performed. It's fitting to be in such a building, he said, rather than a theater or a bar.

The show plays from 7 to 9 p.m. each Saturday, with a new theme each week. "The biggest challenge right now is consistency. I want to put all my attention to the quality of the performances," Christensen said. "That's a challenge on a week-to-week basis."

Joanna Johnson, a theater student at Utah State University, has attended the cabaret since it opened and been on both sides of the microphone. "It's so much fun to be able to perform and come every week to see other artists and just share in the musical fun," Johnson said.

The show's roster of local singers includes perfomers with national and Broadway theater credits, including Diana Walker, who sang the role of Carlotta in the Canadian national tour of "The Phantom of the Opera."

Singer J.J. Rolle, who grew up in Georgia and spent several years performing music and theater in Germany before moving to Utah, saw an audition notice for the cabaret show posted on Craigs -list.com, He performed in a show earlier this month, and is scheduled to perform on an upcoming Motown night. "It has a lot of potential," Rolle said. "If people know that it's going on, it should catch on pretty well."

If there's a problem with the show so far, it's the need to balance the size of the audience with the number of singers eager to perform. "I'm proud to be creating art hosted in a place with a rich history, and plan on being a permanent part of the downtown arts and entertainment district that our mayor has been a passionate proponent of," Christensen said. "And perhaps I get to create a legacy for Nan Larner, as well."