With only 120 seats in the venue, the Ent Center’s Cabaret Club allows for an intimate, close-knit view of the onstage collaborations between UCCS students and visiting artists.

Cabaret Club brings professional performers from all over the nation to share their work while interacting with Visual and Performing Arts (VAPA) students in conversations and workshops, giving the visiting artists a platform and chance to share their craft with the students, who get an opportunity for an immersive, hands-on learning experience. Chancellor Sobanet even joined the audience for one such recent performance, “The Forgotten Arm,” by singer-songwriter Aimee Mann.

“The club’s premise is threefold,” explained Kevin Landis, professor and director of the Theatre & Dance Program in the VAPA Department. “One, we give space for professional artists from around the country to workshop new pieces to make Colorado Springs an incubator of new American work. Two, our students have the opportunity to have exchange with these artists either in workshops or colloquia. And three, there’s a performance at the end of a residency that is of top quality and is open and available to the entire community in an intimate environment.”

Ten artists in total, including Mann, joined for “The Forgotten Arm” week. Paul Bryan, acclaimed musician and long-time collaborator of Mann’s, and Oskar Eustis, artistic director of The Public Theater, were also part of the program. The Public Theater and Eustis were instrumental in making the partnership with UCCS happen, in large part due to Landis’s long-standing connection with them. These networks are another layer of what makes the Cabaret Club special – personal connections from the staff that bring the performers and students together.

“As a performer, there’s nothing like getting feedback from an audience in real time,” said David Siegel, Ent Center for the Arts executive director. “It’s a gift that we are able to provide to artists to have this audience so close and that we’re able to provide the audience with world-class performers right there in front of them. It creates a remarkably special evening. In terms of the experience for students, we often see performances that are fully formed and highly polished and go from city to city for one night only. Cabaret Club gives our students the ability to see what it’s like to actually create work, which is what they are all here learning how to do.”

“The Forgotten Arm,” Mann’s fifth album, has been adapted into a musical that interweaves the songs with a story of two lovers grappling with recovery and loss. As part of the weeklong stay by the artists, Mann and her team workshopped new ideas while working with UCCS students and getting a new perspective through their eyes.

“Artists get so much out of working with fresh minds and having students be part of the creative process, and the technical production team members at the Ent Center are top-notch professionals that can very quickly create a production that meets these world-class artists’ expectations and needs,” said Siegel.

“Aimee and Oskar did colloquia with the students including informal forums and conversations,” added Landis. “Oskar took a bunch of students out to breakfast to talk through the piece to help figure out what was working and what wasn’t. And then our students would go in and watch rehearsals and actually watch them create, and you can’t put a price tag on that.”

The performances often bring the audience into the conversation as well, with artists participating in discussions about the shows with the attendees. The intimate atmosphere creates a closer, immersive show that, by its conclusion, has included the artists, UCCS students and staff and even the attending community members.

“To me, Cabaret Club is the very best of what the Ent Center was built to do,” Siegel said. “We’re unique on campus in that we serve students, we serve the community and we serve campus as a whole. And what I love about the Cabaret Club is that it serves students with unbelievable academic mentorship experiences with top-tier artists, and it puts on a great show for our community. There is nothing like sitting in the back of the Cabaret Club and watching these performances hit an audience and watching members of our campus community and our broader community have an emotional reaction to the work they’re seeing on stage.”

Learn more about the Ent Center of the Arts and Cabaret Club, and their upcoming performances, online.