Encore Follies features 94-year-old showgirl

"Growing old is not a bore," Kitty Duarte says, running her lines to a nearly empty rehearsal hall inside the East Las Vegas Senior Center.

"Just sit back and watch me roar!"

Duarte's legs aren't all that won't quit. At 94, she's the oldest performer in the Encore Follies, a group of 20 senior entertainers that re-creates show tunes for conventions, trade shows and charity events. (The youngest is 57.)

Today, they're practicing for "Broadway Our Way," the season-opener at the Reed Whipple Cultural Center. It's one of four or five productions they stage per year.

"I'm the oldest active showgirl in Nevada," Duarte declares between blasts from a homemade cassette of songs from "No, No Nanette," "Smokey Joe's Cafe" and "The Act."

Duarte's claim is hard to verify, since there are so many seniors performing at private parties around Las Vegas. But it also seems hard to argue. Duarte has a daughter who, at 75, is older than all five of her mom's fellow feathered kickers.

"I'm just blessed," Duarte says of her longevity and health.

However, she adds: "You wouldn't want to see me when I get up in the morning. I was told to put makeup on today."

Duarte learned to buck and wing dance for tips on the street during the Depression. Later, she toured the United States with her husband, comedian Jose Duarte, who died in 2002.

"I never was booked or anything, but I always managed to get into the act," she says, comparing herself to Lucille Ball's "I Love Lucy" character.

"I ended up dancing and singing, and my husband wanted to kill me," she says.

The Encore Follies -- founded by producer/director/choreographer Mary Ann Arcadipane in 2001 -- convenes twice a week for four hours of rehearsal at a clip. Duarte says she's worked just about all the remnants of the stroke she suffered last year out of her left leg.

"It still won't go as high, but I'm trying," she says.

Asked if she aspires to the current pinnacle of Vegas showgirldom -- hanging from an arm of Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman -- Duarte replies: "He's too old for me."

Contact reporter Corey Levitan at clevitan@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0456.