Party Girl's toes are still tappin' from Festival International last weekend and the Performing Arts Society of Acadiana's four-day Tap City marathon the previous week. I hope everyone had their dancin' shoes on. I'm looking forward to hearing all of your festival party stories, but let me tell you about Tap City. The New York dancers were picked up at the airport by Don Johnson in the Good Times trolley, their open-air transportation for the weekend. Don whisked the dancers to the tap jam at Downtown Alive!, where they later performed to some zydeco with Lil' Nathan and the Zydeco Big Timers. The dancers were also treated to an elegant dinner in the Iberia Bank lobby where they were introduced to their local tap all-star counterparts. Although the PASA stars had been practicing for weeks for their closing number in the show, they were caught by surprise when Rebecca Landry called an impromptu rehearsal as dessert was served. Barbara and Bobby McCarty, Conrad Comeaux, Joyce Bonin and Daryl Byrd and his daughter Emma enjoyed the sneak peek performance, a sign of more tap to come over the next three days. At Saturday's ArtWalk, tap legend Brenda Bufalino signed copies of her book at The Independent Weekly's offices to the tap sounds of the Immaculate Heart of Mary dancers out on the street. Sunday's Tap City performance was followed by a cast party at Michael Doumit's home, which sustained the dancers for yet one more performance for local students on Monday. I said marathon, didn't I? "Familiar faces and new audiences alike showed up for all of our tap activities making the Tap City weekend a huge, exuberant success!" says PASA's Natalie LeBlanc. Party Girl would venture to say even Natalie and PASA Director Jackie Lyle were tapped out!
Birthday girl Gail Romero of Van Eaton & Romero wasn't quite ready to tap her feet when a brass band surprised her on the treadmill at Red's for her big 65th. More than 100 agents were in on the surprise, armed with a "Social Security" birthday banner and signs with Gail's eighth grade photo, the work of Gail's business partner, Nancy Broussard. Party Girl bets Gail is still thanking her for that one! After all the commotion, Gail was able to enjoy breakfast overlooking the tennis courts. Happy Birthday, girl! Doesn't everyone need a business partner like Nancy?
There will soon be a whole lot of shakin’ going on at Benny’s Sportshack Supplement Depot, a new concept by Opelousas native Benny Nele. Located at 2002 Johnston St., the supplement shop, smoothie bar and café, featuring hot off the press paninis and wraps, plans to open in late May.
Philip deMahy Sr., a once respected New Iberia ad exec, was sentenced May 2 to spend the next two years (he faced up to 100 years) in a state penitentiary after state and federal investigators found dozens of images depicting children engaged in lewd sexual acts on his personal computer.
This year’s Cool Town issue is all about people who are not native to South Louisiana but made a conscious decision to be here, to be among us, to participate in our culture and contribute to it.
A shelved ordinance transferring $200,000 from a northside drainage project to a south Lafayette development may not break any laws, but it stinks to high heaven.
An effort to restore a shuttered dancehall and document other vacant or razed honky-tonks could serve as a model for saving an endangered species of entertainment.
Lafayette’s gene pool has been host to a long line of eccentric characters who have blurred the lines between crazy, genius, disturbed and curiously entertaining.
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