Stepping Out (play)

Stepping Out
Written by	Richard Harris
Characters	Mavis Vera Maxine Andy Sylvia Dorothy Lynne Rose Geoffrey Mrs Fraser
Date premiered	25 September 1984
Original language	English
Setting	A dingy North London church hall

Stepping Out is a play written by Richard Harris in 1984. It was produced in the West End, London, where it received the Evening Standard Comedy of the Year Award, and on Broadway, New York.

The play concerns eight individuals from disparate backgrounds and with differing motivations who attend the same weekly tap dancing class in a dingy North London church hall. Despite the students at first treating the classes as social occasions, and showing little co-ordination, they later develop a level of skill and cohesiveness. The dance routines are the background for the focus of the play, the relationship and interaction of different people.

According to the play's writer, Richard Harris, the inspiration for the show came from his wife, the actress Hilary Crane: "My wife started her career as a dancer and she liked to keep her foot in, as it were, so she went down to the local dance class and when she came back she suggested that I should go and have a look as she felt there might be a play in it for me".

Taking his wife's advice, Harris visited the local church hall, a setting very much like the one in the play, where a tap dance class was in progress. "My wife hadn't been to the tap dance class", he explained. "She went to join a modern dance group, so it was by pure luck that I happened to go there and look through the window when a tap dance class was going on. It struck me that they all seemed to be thoroughly enjoying themselves and I thought if I could capture that, the pleasure they are clearly getting out of the class, I might be a winner. So I spent a period researching and going to various dance classes and then wrote the play".

The original production of Stepping Out premiered in 1984 at Leatherhead Theatre, directed by actress Julia McKenzie with cast: Barbara Ferris (Mavis), Sheri Shepstone (Mrs. Fraser), Charlotte Barker (Lynne), Josephine Gordon (Dorothy), Barbara Young (Maxine), Gabrielle Lloyd (Andy), Ben Aris (Geoffrey), Diane Langton (Sylvia), Peggy Phango (Rose) and Marcia Warren (Vera). A tour of the production followed. The play opened in the West End at the Duke of York's Theatre, on 24 September 1984, and ran for nearly three years until 1 July 1987. It was awarded the Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Comedy in 1984.

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