But, really kid, you’ll shoot your eye out
December 3, 2012
TPR Basketball registration is this month
December 3, 2012
We asked, and you responded.
Readers of the Gumbo Entertainment Guide voted the best in local entertainment – event, band, theater production and art venue – via an online survey and mail-in ballots.
Thank you to all who participated, including Tania Theriot, who was the random voter picked for a $100 prize. Stay tuned for more opportunities to interact and to win prizes.
Without further ado, onto the winners.
Houmapalooza
The semi-annual, 10-hour, original-music-only concert Houmapalooza was named the best locally sponsored event by readers of the Gumbo Entertainment Guide.
The Houma Regional Arts Council has produced four Houmapalooza concerts since its debut in 2011, and thus far reality has dwarfed expectations for the event borne of a casual post-meeting conversation.
“It’s probably grown 100 percent every time we’ve done it,” says Glenda Toups, the arts council’s executive director, “whether it’s the caliber of bands that keep applying, or the number, and the people and the support. Every time we do it, it ups itself in different aspects.
“I thought it would be a handful of followers of a couple of bands that come out to see them perform, and it’s grown into an actual concert venue for bands, and they aspire to play for it.”
Plans are under way to implement a second stage in downtown Houma for future ‘paloozas. Toups says she’s unsure if the expansion would occur in the spring or the fall, but that it is one of several changes being developed.
“Now that we’ve done it four times and are going into it the fifth time, we have a lot of plans and we’re slowly incorporating them one by one,” Toups says.
Organizers have already succeeded in developing Houmapalooza into more than a one-day event with their weeklong workshop and lecture series leading up to the concert. Topics this year included “Story Telling in Music” and “How to Copyright Music.”
The Gumbo contest’s best-event category was the only one without nominees; Houmapalooza received more write-in votes than any other event.
The one-day concert is lauded as offering bands the opportunity to not gear their sets toward paying customers at a nightclub. The existence of Houmapalooza allows for organic artistry, multiple performers have said.
“People are genuinely there to experience the music,” Toups said. “Houmapalooza is
Houmapalooza returns in April 2013.
Runner-up: Thibodeauxville; Third Place: Best of the Bayou
Nonc Nu and da Wild Matous
Nonc Nu and da Wild Matous, an all-original, bi-lingual band that has taken the local zydeco baton and accented it with rock and country, won first place in the inaugural reader-driven Gumbo’s Greatest Hits contest.
Nonc Nu got their start in 2011 at the Rotary Bayou Music Festival in Golden Meadow. They released their first EP earlier this year and are in the studio working on a full-length album, which they expect to release in January 2013.
Many of the band’s members grew up together in Lafourche Parish, and they had musical experience in various rock bands. After half-heartedly discussing the formation of a zydeco band for months, Nonc Nu was born from shared memories discussed over a beer on Lloyd’s patio.
“When we first started writing this stuff, it was to try to relate, I guess, a lot of our childhood experiences growing up down the bayou,” Lloyd says. “That’s really what we started out at. As we’ve evolved from there, we’re finding out this is definitely an avenue that we can relate to a lot of people.”
The band takes pride in raising cultural awareness, Lloyd says, and it makes the solemn issues palatable by infusing humor into the songs. Most of the lyrics are written in English, but they include “Cajun French” terms the men picked up while growing up on the bayou.
Mike Collins (accordion), Cody Guidry (bass), Leith Adams (drums), Travis Orgeron (guitar), Brent Klibert (cowbell/tambourine) and Philip Porche (lead vocals, lead guitar and harmonica) round out the band.
Although there is an abundance of zydeco-familiar instruments, the band is not strictly a zydeco band.
“We have no clue how to categorize ourselves,” Lloyd says. “I guess you can say it’s zyde-rock. I have no clue.”
Nonc Nu is on a bit of performance hiatus while they focus on the album. Live shows should resume in January or February.
“Pass a Good Time or Two,” the EP, can be purchased through iTunes or www.cdbaby.com.
Runner-up: The Josh Garrett Band; Third place: Baby Bee
‘Steel Magnolias’ (Bayou Playhouse)
The Bayou Playhouse production “Steel Magnolias” was crowned the year’s best area theater production by readers of the Gumbo Entertainment Guide.
The comedy-drama featured an all-female, mostly local cast set in northwestern Louisiana. The plot brought to light the underlying friendship between the owner of a beauty parlor and her frequent customers as they coped with life’s challenges.
“I wanted to the do the show for years and looked and wasn’t sure we could find the right cast. When we finally got the right cast, we did it,” Bayou Playhouse Artistic Director Perry Martin says. “I was able to cast people that had basic personalities of everybody on stage. … There wasn’t a whole lot of acting; everybody was just being themselves.”
The play, which ran from March 9 through April 1, starred Kathryn Talbot (Truvy Jones), Jillian Vedros Rowan (Shelby Eatenton), Pat Hornsby Crochet (Clairee Belcher), Daphne Hernandez (M’Lynn Eatenton) and Jackie Freeman (Annelle Dupuy).
“Steel Magnolias” is most known as the 1989 film – written by Robert Harling and starring Sally Field and Dolly Parton – that grossed $96 million at the box office. The play contrasted from the movie because the mode in which the story is told is well suited for theater, according to the director.
“I think what everybody enjoyed was, they’re all used to seeing the movie. The play itself is different from the movie in so many ways,” Martin says. “To be there with these people inside that beauty parlor is a whole different experience.”
While rehearsing for the play, Martin said he was working to cut out some of the comical aspects to focus on drama. Plans changed, however, and the humor instead was concentrated on the basis of character interaction.
“Instead of going after the comedy to try to make the audience laugh, we went after comedy so that they were making each other laugh on stage,” Martin says. “It made it more like a group of ladies having a good time and laughing, and the audience laughed along with them.”
The playhouse, located on Bayou Lafourche in Lockport, presents four shows each season. “Cinderella Batistella,” the second production of Season 5, runs through Dec. 16. It is followed by “A Streetcar Named Desire,” in February 2013 and the original Cajun-themed comedy “Turtles and Alligators” in May.
Runner-up: “Comic Potential” (Le Petit Theatre de Terrebonne); Third-place: “Okra” (Bayou Playhouse)
Art Versus
Art Versus, a monthly exhibition at downtown Houma’s The Boxer and The Barrel, was named the top local art venue by readers of the Gumbo Entertainment Guide.
On the last Friday of every month, local artists flock to the bar and search for an empty spot to hang their work. No one is turned down, and frames aren’t necessary.
“It’s a little hotspot for people who don’t know how to get started in the art world,” says Ré Howse, who helps manage Art Versus with Ethan Molinere. “What I tell other artists who are creative is that they should at least come collaborate and meet socially during that monthly meeting.”
There’s also the matter of selling artwork, which is an option Art Versus has introduced to some of its alternative-themed participants.
“I’ve been really successful selling stuff there and have gotten outside commission because of my stuff hanging there,” Howse says. “I just couldn’t believe it. … My husband and I have bought a lot of art, too, out of The Boxer and the Barrel.”
Conceived by owner Todd Rowan, Rusty Bouvier and Brandon Champagne in the Summer of 2011, the exhibit has taken off, garnering publicity and developing into a regular gathering point for artists to share work and ideas.
Stakeholders are in the process of establishing a non-profit organization, Howse says, which would in turn dole out small grants to local artists, such as one who needs money to finish products.
The idea continues to evolve. On multiple occasions, artists have worked alongside one another – such as live painting – during the monthly gathering, and plans are in place to take the action outside, with a collaborative chalk illustration on the sidewalk.
“Through the month of December we also want them to bring every piece of Christmas art, Christmas decoration they have and just make this funky, I don’t know, whatever kind of response we’re going to get from these artists,” Howse says. “Hopefully every month we’re going to come up with some thing we can do.”
Runner-up: Ameen Art Gallery; Third-place: Southdown Plantation Home
Meta the Man perform at Houmapalooza, which was selected by readers of the Gumbo Entertainment Guide as the best locally sponsored event.
Nonc Nu and da Wild Matous, named the best local band by readers of the Gumbo Entertainment Guide, perform.
Kathryn Talbot (Truvy Jones) and Jillian Vedros-Rowan (Shelby Eatenton) rehearse “Steel Magnolias,” which readers of the Gumbo Entertainment Guide tabbed as the best local theater production last year.
Readers of the Gumbo Entertainment Guide chose chose Art Versus as the best local art venue.
