Stepping Out

Stepping Out is a warm and very funny play about the lives, laughs and loves of a group of women (and one man) attending a weekly tap-dance class in a dingy North London church hall. There is ex-professional dancer Mavis, who runs the class; cheerfully overweight Sylvia; Andy, a plain do-gooder with no confidence; snobby but well meaning Vera; timid Dorothy who works in Social Security; Maxine, attractive, sharp and very shrewd; fat, plain Lynne; Rose, just here for a good time, and Geoffrey, the lone male. As the play progresses, the class’s dancing improves to such an extent that by the climax, a grand charity show performance, they have been transformed into triumphant tappers, worthy of any chorus line.

Stepping Out was first presented at the Thorndike Theatre, Leatherhead. Subsequently presented by Bill Kenwright, in association with the Thorndike Theatre, at the Duke of York’s Theatre, London on 18 September, 1984.