A new play which looks at the lives behind the fixed smiles and fake tan of the world of ballroom dancing is to have its première at the New Vic Theatre, Newcastle-under-Lyme.
Kiss Me Quickstep is the latest offering from “Britain’s most consistently popular female dramatist” Amanda Whittington.
She said, “like many people, my interest in ballroom and Latin was sparked by Strictly Come Dancing.
“In 2012 I was one of six writers offered a Making Tracks bursary to take a creative journey. My fellow playwrights went to Sarajevo, Athens and Kosovo. I drove up the M6 to Blackpool for its annual dance festival. If there was a play in ballroom, this seemed like the right place to start.
“As a spectator, I soon felt like I’d slipped down a rabbit hole into wonderland. The world felt completely off-kilter, full of surreal images and a strange kind of beauty. The glamour and glitz were all there but so were the steely-eyed stares and sharp elbows.
“One of the most remarkable sights was the sheer number of dancers who prepared not in dressing rooms but on the edge of the ballroom. A young woman in full costume was sat on the floor with her head in her hands. This became a starting point for the play I knew was there. In a mirror-ball light, Kiss Me Quickstep was born.”
The cast includes Amy Barnes, Matt Crosby, Hannah Edwards who played Rachel Brown in Jerome Lawrence and Robert E Lee’s Inherit the Wind in 2014 and the lead role in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland in 2011 both at the New Vic, Jack Lord who played the reader in Ian Kershaw’s adaptation of Susan Hill’s Mist in the Mirror at Oldham Coliseum in 2015, Abigail Moore, Isaac Stanmore who played Robin in Theresa Heskins’s Robin Hood and Marian and Jonathan Harker in Dracula, both at the New Vic in 2015 and Ed White who has appeared in Guys and Dolls, Chicago, Dirty Dancing, Legally Blonde and Elf in the West End.
Directed by New Vic artistic director Theresa Heskins, Kiss Me Quickstep runs from Friday 4 until Saturday 19 March. It then tours to Oldham Coliseum Theatre and Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph Theatre.