There’s so much music and film in New Orleans, we could do a weekly show exclusively about show business. Even if we were to do that, this edition of Out to Lunch would still be out of the ordinary. Peter’s lunch guests are in very non-traditional aspects of the entertainment industry.

Mike Dardant is a magician. His abilities with sleight of hand, comedy, and pickpocketing have earned him International awards, as well as character roles and consulting jobs on films and music videos.

Janet Wilson is Executive Director of an improv comedy troupe called Funny Bones. Don’t call Ticketmaster looking for tickets to a Funny Bones show. Funny Bones performances are free. But you have to be child in a hospital to get to see them.

New Orleans is home to all kinds of new and innvoative entrepreneurial businesses. Comedy and magic hearken back to an age and centuries past that pre-date the internet and NOLA the brain-gain, but Janet and Mike are taking both comedy and magic to, literally, places they have never been.

Photos at Commander’s Palace by Alison Moon.