Debbie Tylak

STEPPING OUT Sima, while stunningly beautiful, has failed to fulfill her dreams as a professional dancer. She is on the wrong side of thirty, being aged out, and is forced to take a job as a teacher at a conservative local high school. Much to her surprise, it sparks the choreographer in her -- a talent she has been nurturing in private not only to battle her self-doubt and depression but to create a new and unique fusion of belly and ballroom styles.

In an attempt to beautify her town — and advance her career — Leslie Knope, a mid-level bureaucrat in the Parks and Recreation Department of Pawnee, Indiana, takes on bureaucrats, cranky neighbors, and single-issue fanatics whose weapons are lawsuits, the jumble of city codes, and the democratic process she loves so much.