Dynamic Duos

Norman Gosney & Amelia Kallman

Shanghai roared into the 1920s with showgirls, jazz and debauchery clinging to its coattails, but the party ended all too soon and the city’s nightlife never quite recovered – until now. Almost a century later, Norman Gosney and Amelia Kallman are reviving the infamous decade’s decadence and romance in the Paris of the East with their vaudeville and burlesque club, Gosney & Kallman’s Chinatown. 

A classically-trained actress, Amelia had no experience with burlesque when she met Norman after crashing a party at his Chelsea Hotel penthouse. Initially, she dismissed the premise, but Norman quickly turned her on to the genre. Before they knew it, Amelia was co-hosting and co-producing shows at Dutch Weissmann’s, Norman's illegal speakeasy.

In 2007, Norman and Amelia set their sights internationally and decided that Shanghai was ripe for their brand of entertainment. After opening up Chinatown in 2008, they perform five nights a week and stay busy with the business side the rest of their waking moments, an arrangement that works for the dedicated husband and wife team.

“The old chestnut is that couples shouldn’t live and work together. In our case it has been not only a pleasure, but, in running Chinatown, it’s a necessity,” Norman says. “After shows, when we get home, we use the buzz from performing to write and devise new material. It shouldn’t work, but it surely does.”

The doting couple doesn’t always work together so peacefully. “The only time we ever really argue is over ‘artistic differences.’ We can both be quite stubborn about our visions,” says Amelia. “But our best work comes from collaborating, and doing good work together makes us a better, happier couple too.”

Shanghai denizens can head up to the former Buddhist monastery in Hongkou to see the pair’s real-life working relationship on stage as they bring the depravity of the city’s heyday back to life.

Chinatown. 471 Zhapu Lu, by Haining Lu. Tel: 6258 2078. Web: www.chinatownshanghai.com