With its premiere in 2001, the show “Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks” preceded wildly popular TV dance contests like “Dancing with the Stars” and “So You Think You Can Dance” by a number of years. But the South Carolina Repertory Company is hoping audiences will shimmy and glide their way into their take, drawn by the renewed popularity of dance and the always-fashionable love-story-with-a-twist.
According to the theater’s managing director, Blake White, “Six Dance Lessons” seemed like a perfect fit for a company known for its choices of plays with small casts and intimate spaces. “First and foremost, this play is very funny,” White said. “It really examines one’s idea of tolerance and how that can evolve no matter what one’s age or history happens to be.
Michael, a gay, middle-aged dance instructor, gives Lily, the strait-laced widow of a Southern Baptist minister, a dance lesson every week at her Florida condo. Both are sharp-tongued and needy and their personalities are as different as can be, but they develop a unique relationship and end up learning from each other as Lily also masters the tango, waltz and cha-cha.
‘Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks’
When: 8 p.m. Thursday-Dec. 5, 9-12, 15-19 and 2 p.m. Dec. 6, 13
Where: South Carolina Repertory Company, 136 Beach City Road, Hilton Head Island.
Tickets: $26 for adults and $24 for seniors and students on weeknights and matinees; $28 for adults and $26 for seniors and students on weekends. $15 for students.
Information: 843-342-2057, www.hiltonheadtheatre.com
Repertory Company veteran Barbara Farrar, who recently turned 77, will put on her dancing shoes to play Lily in what is her 12th production for the company. Greenville actor Brock Koonce has appeared in several productions at two upstate professional theaters, The Warehouse and Centre Stage.
White said “the dances are probably the most challenging (and fun) aspects of the show.” And director Peggy Trecker White also is the show’s choreographer and both actors took dance lessons in a variety of steps and styles before rehearsals started.