John Lemak in blue cheaters and needle-point evening slippers looked right at home on the Winspear terrace on Saturday, May 14. Smiling, he summed up the 70+ degree temperatures, the breeze and the beautiful peeps in for the Dallas Theater Center’s Centerstage fundraiser: “It’s California weather.”
Just a few yards away, DTC fans like Rebecca and Barron Fletcher, Bess and Ted Enloe and Nancy Cain Marcus strolled past shapely gals in neon second-skin body suits. One guest admitted that had she been in such get ups, she would have required double-duty Spanx. Still another dowager sniffed, “They look like balloon creatures.”
As the crowd grew inside the Winspear, the Lemaks seemed to have created a satellite operation on the terrace with John’s rehabbed knee and wife Muffin Lemak’s still ailing eyes. But still the Lemaks’ fashion trumped all with Muffin’s Gucci purse, her Forty Five Ten dress and John’s slippers topped off with natty socks. John couldn’t help but gig his wife, revealing that in cleaning out her closet he had discovered a half-finished needle-point cummerbund that Muffin had started a while or so ago.
With Centerstage Co-Chair Melinda Johnson laughing on the sidelines, Co-Chair Ann Mahowald rounded up her gals buds (Debra Hitzelberger, Deanna Mahowald, Eleanor Bond, Patricia Reyher, Michelle Moussa, Cindy Pierce and Ann Wood) for a photo or two just outside the Winspear. DTC Artistic Director Kevin Moriarty in his signature red sneakers looked blissful as the guests like Helen and Frank Risch, Carol and Don Glendenning, Kit and Kemp Sawers and Yvette Ostolaza and Peter Dewar, Regen and Jeff Fearon, Dolores and Larry Barzune, D’Andra Simmons Lock and Hamilton Snead arrived.
When the signal was given to head into the concert hall, all heeded the call. Soon, they found themselves on stage enjoying a delightful dinner: corn cakes, braised beef, and a layered parfait dessert. After that, energetic Justin Guarini & The Payback took the bandstand, cranking out old favorites such as Stevie Wonder’s “Signed Sealed Delivered” that had the likes of Helen and Frank and Julie and Ken Hersch showing off their moves on the dance floor. Later it was time for still more rug-cutting into the wee hours, courtesy of DJ Lucy Wrubel.