West Boca Theatre Company Presents ‘Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks’

By Dale King

Playwright Richard Alfieri’s production of Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks opens Sunday, March 5, at the Sandler Center in the Adolph and Rose Levis JCC in West Boca Raton. The show is being performed by the West Boca Theater Company.

Shows are scheduled on the following dates:

Sundays, March 5 & 12 at 2 p.m.

Wednesdays, March 8 & 15 at 2 p.m.

Saturdays, March 11 & 18 at 7:30 p.m.

In the show, Lily, an aging but formidable retiree, hires Michael, an acerbic dance instructor, to give her dance lessons in her condo in St. Petersburg Beach, Fla.

Antagonism between a gay man and the wife of a Southern Baptist minister gives way to profound compatibility as they swing dance, tango, foxtrot and cha-cha while sharing barbs and intimacies along with the dance steps.

As Michael takes Lily in his arms on their final meeting, they both transcend fear and mortality while the sun sets on their last dance.

The play, Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks, opened on Broadway at the Belasco Theater and starred Polly Bergen and Mark Hamill. The show premiered in Los Angeles in 2001 where it set records at the Geffen Playhouse in a production starring the legendary actress Uta Hagen in her final role.

It has since been translated into 14 languages and opened in more than 24 countries with productions in cities that include Berlin, Sydney, Melbourne, Vienna, Madrid, Tokyo, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Amsterdam, Budapest, Helsinki, Prague, Istanbul, Hamburg, Munich, Athens, Seoul, Johannesburg and London.