{"id":23426,"date":"2019-04-04T19:25:43","date_gmt":"2019-04-04T23:25:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=23426"},"modified":"2019-04-04T19:25:51","modified_gmt":"2019-04-04T23:25:51","slug":"theatre-aurora-puts-best-foot-forward-with-stepping-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/theatre-aurora-puts-best-foot-forward-with-stepping-out\/","title":{"rendered":"Theatre Aurora puts best foot forward with Stepping Out"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everyone knows how difficult\nit is to take that first step out of your comfort zones, and that is exactly\nwhat the characters do in Stepping Out, which opens next Thursday at Theatre\nAurora.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Written by Richard\nHarris, Stepping Out is a comedy about \u201cworking class amateurs attempting to\novercome their inhibitions and left feet in a low-rent dance studio in North\nLondon.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the characters\nwork to step outside of their day-to-day routine, Stepping Out is helping\nfirst-time director Judi Cragg get back into familiar territory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ms. Cragg, a resident\nof Newmarket, has always had a love of theatre. Once upon a time, she was very\ninvolved in local theatre, particularly musicals, in Ottawa. She continued her\nlove after moving to Toronto, but life intervened. Her daughter was born, she\nraised her family, and her first love took something of a backseat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, at Theatre\nAurora, she\u2019s back in her element.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI really missed being\ninvolved with theatre, so I asked around and I found Theatre Aurora,\u201d she says,\nnoting Theatre Aurora Board Member Barb Jones helped open the door. \u201cThe first\nthing I did was co-produce The Drowsy Chaperone with Barb in the fall, but, as\nI was doing that, I already thought I would like to get back into directing. As\nI watched the rehearsal process, I kept thinking I just wanted to get back on\nstage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAlthough I had never\ndirected before, I am a retired teacher with a specialization in drama, running\nthe drama club, putting on big musical performances, so I have that behind me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All the components\ncame into place, however, late last fall when the director originally slated\nfor Stepping Out had to step back. Ms. Cragg saw an opportunity and stepped up\nto make her pitch to the Theatre Aurora Board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her vision for the\nplay struck a chord and she was asked to take the helm \u2013 and take on a\nchallenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I read this\nplay, I noticed that the characters are not really as developed as they could\nbe from a writing perspective,\u201d she says. \u201cMy first thought was, instead of\nseeing that as a real problem, how can I develop those characters further\nwithout changing dialogue? That was an appealing challenge for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese people are in\ntap class every week, there\u2019s dancing, there\u2019s music involved and, for me, that\nwas also a little bit of a pull.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the end of the day,\nStepping Out is essentially a comedy, she says. Ms. Craig likens it in some\nways to the sitcom M*A*S*H that perfected comedy that could turn on a dime to\nthe more emotional, poignant moments. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is a group of\npeople who are very different from one another,\u201d she says of Stepping Out.\n\u201cThey just come together once a week for their tap dance with varying degrees\nof ability, from different backgrounds and bringing with them different\npersonalities. We, as humans, all have a chink in our armour and that is what I\nwas looking for: some of the characters, in the writing, reveal more to the\naudience than others, but there are still little moments for everybody and I\nwant to make sure the audience gets that and feels that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They will be helped\nthrough the behind-the-scenes creativity of the actors as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As part of her\ndirectorial process, Ms. Cragg tasked her actors with coming up with detailed\nbackstories for their respective characters. In the process, they brought in\ntheir own lived experiences and the personalities of themselves and others\nthey\u2019ve encountered throughout their lives. In the process, they have developed\non-stage personas that will reach each and every audience member \u2013 for better\nor worse!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSome of the character\ndevelopment is not written in the script, so we needed to look for body\nlanguage and facial expressions, how they feel about someone else,\u201d she says.\n\u201cThis is a feel-good play and I want people to leave the theatre feeling good\nand uplifted. I want them to be able to relate to the characters in different\nways. There\u2019s one character that\u2019s, well, that is just completely annoying and\nI think most people have met someone like that in their lives. Maybe they\u2019ll\neven say, \u2018I want to go out and take a tap class.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stepping Out opens at Theatre Aurora next Thursday,\nApril 4, at 8 p.m., and running at select dates and times through April 13. For\nmore information, including tickets, visit www.theatreaurora.com or call\n905-727-3669.<\/em><\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Everyone knows how difficult it is to take that first step out of your comfort zones, and that is exactly what the characters do in Stepping Out, which opens next Thursday at Theatre Aurora.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-65Q","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-11 05:46:25","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23426\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}