“Dancing Lessons” Gives You Something to Think About at Penguin Rep

BY GEORGE J. DACRE

This is a play about an autistic man with Asperger’s Syndrone who contacts a Broadway dancer who has been injured and has a leg in a cast, for dancing lessons. The trouble is Ever Montgomery, played by Mathew

Schmidt, has an aversion to anyone touching him and Senga Quinn, played by Kathleen Wise, fears she may never get back to professional dancing again. Ever has a great capacity for facts and can rattle them off

and does so in this two member cast vehicle. Senga is very cautious about a man who offers more than $2,000.00 for an hour of dancing lessons. With this plot, author Mark St. Germain (he did “Becoming Dr. Ruth” at Penguin), has a wonderful time with dialogue for this interesting couple who play out the scenes in Sengas studio apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. After a lot of intellectual fencing, Senga and

Ever get started dancing, although it is tenuous. They ultimately wind up doing a crude dance together and what do you know (?), kissing and actually having sex. But still there are problems and they continue their vocal battles and seem to be on the edge of parting although they are in love. Ever gets an award for a lecture he gives at the New York Institute of Technology. They both wind up consulting a psychologist, and then in

the Millenium Hotel Ballroom, doing a fantastic waltz. Go figure. And there is a happy ending. This is an intriguing production as are all of Penguin Rep’s shows. Catch it weekends through early September at

Penguin Rep. Contact penguinrep.org.

Penguin’s Bidding For Good Auction runs October 2 through October 16. Contact Bidding For Good.com/Penguinrep.

Rep’s and I rate it Three Out Of Four Stars!!! The message is don’t give up and autism can be partially overcome. Catch it weekends into September at the gutsiest little theatre off Broadway on Crickettown Road in Stony Point. Contact penguinrep.org or 845-786-2873.