Tap Shoes Open the Senior Center’s Summer, Under a Founder’s Name

The Tap Chicks have been dancing under the same name since 1997, and they still dance under it now — though the woman who gave them the name is gone. Pam Kay, the Las Vegas veteran who founded the troupe and spent decades building Broadway-style routines for it, died in 2024. The Chicks kept going.

They open the Pasadena Senior Center’s Summer Concert Series on Tuesday, joined by special guest Franny McCartney. The center promises music, dancing and comedy, which has always been the formula: tight tap formations, vaudeville-inflected humor, costumes with a sense of occasion.

The series itself has a theme this year. The center has built its four-concert lineup around America’s 250th anniversary, with each week drawing from a different strand of American music — Broadway tunes, country, roots music, big band. The Tap Chicks come first. The Silverados follow on August 25 with classic and contemporary country, U.S. 99 brings American roots music on September 1, and the Great American Swing Band closes the run with a 14-piece Labor Day program.

Concerts take place on the center’s tree-shaded patio, with the final Labor Day performance moving inside the Scott Pavilion. Chairs are provided. Picnics are welcome. Dancing, the center notes, is encouraged.

The Pasadena Senior Center is a donor-supported nonprofit at 85 E. Holly St., a short walk from City Hall. Reservations are recommended for the concerts, and walk-ins are welcome.

Pam Kay’s Tap Chicks with Franny McCartney will perform on Tuesday, August 18 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Pasadena Senior Center, 85 E. Holly St., Pasadena. For more information, call (626) 795-4331 or visit pasadenaseniorcenter.org. Reservations recommended.