There’s a new Trevor Schmidt play, How Patty & Joanne Won High Gold at the Grand Christmas Cup Winter Dance Competition. It’s opening simultaneously at Northern Light Theatre in Edmonton, directed by Schmidt, and at Lunchbox Theatre in Calgary, directed by Bronwyn Steinberg.

I saw the Northern Light production. And it left me a little teary, in a contented, some-things-right-in-the-world way.

Jenny McKillop and Kendra Connor play Patty and Joanne, two students in an Adult Beginner Tap class at the Free Body Dance Station. You will probably recognize both performers from amusing shows with Teatro Live! or Fringe or other local companies, but they’re both new to Northern Light. And they have really great chemistry together – both characters mean well, but they start off awkward, not understanding each other and not comfortable together.

As the play starts, they’ve just gotten the message that their dance teacher, Miss Amber, won’t be back to keep teaching them. And the class, which started out full, has dwindled until – are they the only ones who still want to dance? they aren’t sure. Joanne and Patty take turns narrating the story to the audience and interacting with each other in the studio. Rae McCallum’s lighting design makes it clear to us when there’s a shift. The simple set design (Schmidt) makes clever use of the dance mirrors usually hidden behind curtains in the Fringe Studio Theatre.

Both women are middle-aged and have comfortable-enough secure lives, but we see that each of them is lonely and left out, wanting something more, something just for herself. Patty describes coming home from class to see her husband (Peter) and five children (Parker, Patrick, Petra, Poppy, and Emma) decorating cookies together in the kitchen, and they all run to greet her as she drops her dance bag by the kitchen door – and then immediately disperse to other parts of the house leaving her to do all the dishes. I found that bit one of the most poignant things Schmidt has ever written. And the measurement-for-costumes business was hilarious and relatable.

Joanne talks about how she came to love music and dance and especially musical theatre and movie musicals, with memories of being taken on a special movie outing with her parents, wearing a dark red velvet dress with white lace just like her mother’s. “She was beautiful. And on that day, I was a little bit beautiful.” Throughout the play, Joanne bombards Patty with musical theatre history facts and cultural tidbits. She corrects Patty, a sports parent, saying that for dance “it’s not practice, it’s rehearsal”. Their rehearsal outfits are consistent with their different backgrounds/expectations (costumes by Logan Stefura). Joanne is wearing a ballet-pink leotard and tights under a wrap skirt and cut-off CATS t-shirt, while Patty’s outfit includes cutoff grey sweatpants and a football jersey.

In the first scene they rehearse the tap routine that Miss Amber had been teaching them, to “All the Single Ladies”. (Apparently the women in the class would have been dressed as reindeer, with the man as Santa.) The moves are familiar to anyone who’s watched beginner tap classes. They aren’t very good. They keep running that routine periodically as the story progresses, and they get more in sync. Then they change to a piece better suited to entering “musical theatre duet” instead of the “adult group tap” competition class – Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You”. Their performance gradually improves, and their homemade costumes are both credible and fairytale-delightful. Jason Hardwick’s choreography works well to make the easy moves look hard and then have the dancers gradually master them. The soundscape (Lindsay Walker) evokes tap-dance performances and pop-music fun, right from the pre-show selections.

Like many of Trevor Schmidt’s scripts, I started out amused and then became engaged with the likeable but very distinct characters and their situation, realizing afterwards in conversation with my theatregoing companions that there were also some profound messages in the narrative. About the difficulty and awkwardness and necessity of making new friends in mid-life. About wanting “something just for me.” About how anything worth doing is worth doing badly. All of which are good reminders, especially before Christmas.

Running time is about an hour, with no intermission – which is just right for this quiet delightful two-hander.

Tickets to How Patty and Joanne Won High Gold at the Grand Christmas Cup Winter Dance Competition are available here. Performances run until Saturday December 13th. If you’re in Calgary, or if you loved this script so much that you want to road trip, the Lunchbox Theatre production runs at the Vertigo Theatre in Calgary until December 18th.