Taking Steps: In Brief
Taking Steps
Play Number: 24World Premiere: 28 September 1979
Venue: Stephen Joseph Theatre in the Round, Scarborough
Premiere Staging: In-the-round
Published: Samuel French
Other Media: No
Cast: 4m / 2f
Run Time: 2hrs
Synopsis: A tongue-tied solicitor who has bitten off more than he can chew overseeing the sale of a crumbling, reportedly haunted, house.
Note: Alan Ayckbourn's only true full-length farce. Written specifically for theatre-in-the-round with all three floors of a building present on the same level.
- Taking Steps is Alan Ayckbourn's 24th play.
- The world premiere - directed by Alan Ayckbourn - was held at the Stephen Joseph Theatre In The Round, Scarborough, on 28 September 1979.
- The London premiere - directed by Michael Rudman - took place at the Lyric Theatre on 2 September 1980. However, due to it not being staged as intended in-the-round and a general disappointment with the production, Alan Ayckbourn considers the Orange Tree Theatre's 2010 production, which he directed, to be the first London production that reflected the play as written and his intentions.
- The Broadway premiere - directed by Alan Strachan - took place at Circle In The Square Theatre, New York, on 20 February 1991. Unlike the West End premiere, this production was presented in-the-round.
- It is the only play written by Alan Ayckbourn specifically intended to be performed in-the-round (although arguably How The Other Half Loves is a play which only realises its full potential in-the-round). Although most of Alan Ayckbourn's plays are premiered in-the-round and, arguably, work best in this staging, he feels very few cannot be adapted successfully for the end-stage - with the notable exception being Taking Steps.
- Alan Ayckbourn considers the play to be his only true full-length farce. Whilst he has been frequently labelled a farceur, objectively, only How The Other Half Loves and the withdrawn plays The Square Cat and Love After All could seriously be considered as farces (as well as, obviously, the two one act plays which comprise Farcicals).
- Taking Steps is dedicated to the master farceur Ben Travers (1886 - 1980).
- The idea of having three floors occupying the same space is a development of an idea first used by Alan Ayckbourn in How The Other Half Loves (1969) which had two different rooms occupying the same stage space simultaneously.
- The first night of the original production at the Stephen Joseph Theatre In The Round, Scarborough, is renowned at the venue for the volume of laughter both blowing the relay system and adding an extra 17 minutes onto the running time that evening!
- The London premiere of the play marked the final time - as of writing - that Alan Ayckbourn has allowed anyone but himself to direct the West End premiere of his plays.
- Taking Steps marks the only time a West End production and a production of the same play at his home theatre in Scarborough have over-lapped.
- Although published as a play text by Samuel French, Taking Steps was also published in the collection Sisterly Feelings & Taking Steps (Chatto & Windus).