Jenny McKillop and Kendra Connor, How Patty And Joanne Won High Gold At The Grand Christmas Cup Winter Dance Competition, Northern Light Theatre. Photo by Brianne Jang

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca

There’s something irresistible (and appealingly non-utilitarian) about tap dancing.

Patty and Joanne, the two hopeful hoofers who sign up for an adult beginners tap class in Trevor Schmidt’s new holiday comedy, feel it. And so do the co-stars of How Patty and Joanne Won High Gold At The Grand Christmas Cup Winter Dance Competition, premiering Friday in the Northern Light Theatre season (and in a Calgary production at Lunchbox Theatre the same day).

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Twenty years ago, give or take, when Jenny McKillop and Kendra Connor, were in musical theatre school at Grant MacEwan, they’d have called themselves “actors who move,” (not dancers, “nope! nope!”). Connor laughs. “I like to say I’m the actor who gets danced around.”

At MacEwan there were dance classes of all sorts, six or seven a week, for the upcoming  musical theatre triple-threats. “But tap was the only one I took to, the only one that made sense to me,” says McKillop. “I could pick up the choreography better than any other dance form! My favourite by far….”

Partly it was because the MacEwan classes had a bona fide tap dance virtuoso (the inspirational Cindy Kerr) as the teacher. And partly, as the pair are rediscovering in rehearsals, there’s the way tapping “connects your musicality, your body, your brain, simultaneously!,” says Connor, who’s the executive director of the Varscona Theatre. “I’d forgotten how hard that is. It’s good for your brain, the counting, how specific it is, the way you have to think about the feel of the song, the groove…. If you want a mental workout, a tap class is a great thing to do!”

Both actors, Teatro Live! leading ladies (and friends) of long standing, have big dance musicals on their resumés dating back to theatre school. Connor remembers ending up in the Citadel production of Mary Poppins, in the ensemble for the big production number Step In Time. When her second-year theatre school class did 42nd Street, one of the classic tap-dance musicals, there was Connor in the chorus. McKillop, in a different year from her co-star, remembers the ‘body percussion’ number in Peter Pan. 

Jenny McKillop and Kendra Connor in How Patty And Joanne Won High Gold At The Grand Christmas Cup Winter Dance Competition, Northern Light Theatre. Photo by Brianne Jang.

Edmonton audiences will see Connor later this season in Teatro Live’s revival of Cocktails at Pam’s, and McKillop in the Mayfield’s Hurry Hard, set at a curling rink. Meanwhile, in How Patty and Joanne Won High Gold At The Grand Christmas Cup Winter Dance Competition, the catalyst for an unexpected friendship between mismatched middle-aged women who don’t know each other is … tap, the beginner class. And Patty and Joanne’s motives for joining are miles apart. Patty (McKillop) is the mother of five kids — “that’s a lot of kids!” — and the class is “something that gets her away from the kids and have a moment for herself.” Joanne (Connor) “has always wanted to be a performer, since she was nine years old; her childhood dream is being in musical theatre,” says Connor. “But she works in a bank and lives a kind of lonely life, with her cat.”

An adult tap dance class is a social occasion, yes, “but Joanne is also feeling this need to perform. We can understand that,” she says,, grinning at her stage partner. “We sure can!” McKillop agrees.

When the class is cancelled — “everyone except Patty and Joanne has quit” — “they keep coming every week anyhow,” says Connor. “They both want, need, to keep coming. And they decide to enter an amateur dance contest, and create their own routine.” Says McKillop, “They’re teaching themselves from the ground up.”

There’s no pressure to be slick or fabulous dancers onstage. Au contraire. “It’s all OK because we’re taking an adult beginners class so we have free range to be as bad as we want!,” Connor laughs. And they don’t have to meet Olympian standards of fitness either. The characters, says McKillop, are in “average shape, ordinary women!”

And “that’s not what it’s about” anyhow, she says. “It’s a really good buddy story,” says Connor. “Almost like a rom-com, but a platonic one, for two women! I really like that it’s about female friendship and women supporting each other and developing an unexpected friendship.” McKillop finds it appealing that, different as they are, “they find joy in something so simple, and I think that can change the trajectory of where they’re at…. Delightful!”

“They’re very different women! They push each other in different ways.” Joanne is the one who forges ahead and declares ‘we’re doing this!’. Patty is the more worried and stress-y personality, says McKillop. And they inhabit “a fun storyline.,” says Connor. “A feel-good Christmas rom-com that’s not actually romantic.” It’s not a kids’ play per se, she says, but she plans to bring her six-year-old daughter; McKillop will bring her 10-year-old niece. “We allude to swear words but we don’t actually say them…. Joanne is trying to clean up her language.”

The choreography devised by Jason Hardwick is “fun and funny,” McKillop says. “He’s so great at finding the comedy in choreography and working with people at their ability level…. We’re not doing anything impossible.” There’s even a big-finish lift that takes amusing advantage of their contrast in height. She says they have Hardwick do all the routines, film him, and practise.

Both Connor and McKillop have dropped in on some tap classes at Marr-Mac Dance to refresh their rarefied skills. “There’s something so freeing about going back to dance classes after 20 years…. We’re doing it for the joy of it, not for marks!”

“It all starts to come back,” laughs McKillop. “We’re returning to our roots!”

PREVIEW

How Patty and Joanne Won High Gold At The Grand Christmas Cup Winter Dance Competition

Theatre: Northern Light Theatre

Written and directed by: Trevor Schmidt

Starring: Kendra Connor and Jenny McKillop

Where: Studio Theatre, Fringe Arts Barns, 10330 84 Ave.

Running: Friday through Dec. 13

Tickets: northernlighttheatre.com