(BEACH HAVEN, NJ) -- Surflight Theatre is presenting Irving Berlin's Top Hat now through June 15, 2025. This uplifting and entertaining romantic comedy, featuring 14 glorious songs by Irving Berlin, celebrates 1930s music and romance with elegance and panache. This production is the North American Premiere. Photographer John Posada was on hand to take photos.
Adapted for the stage by Matthew White and Howard Jacques, and directed and choreographed by Paula Hammons Sloan, this production features some of Hollywood’s greatest songs, including “Cheek to Cheek”, “Let’s Face the Music and Dance”, “Top Hat White Tie and Tails”, and “Puttin’ on the Ritz.” The screwball comedy follows Broadway star Jerry Travers, who arrives in London to open a new show and crosses paths with model Dale Tremont. Mistaken identities and romantic entanglements ensue as Jerry tries to win Dale’s heart. This show will make you smile and bring joy through its breathtaking dance numbers and fabulous score.
Top Hat stars Deanna Doyle (with credits including Meg Giry in Broadway's Phantom of the Opera and 17-year-old Winnie Foster in Broadway's Tuck Everlasting, Lise in the Broadway tour of An American in Paris, and Vera in Surflight's On Your Toes) as Dale Tremont, Isaiah Mayhew will step into the role of Jerry Travers, (originated by Fred Astaire in the movie) and was last seen at Surflight in Hoagy Carmichael’s Stardust Road. Married in real life couple Erin Fish and Tyler Fish play Madge and Horace Hardwick, John Little will appear as Banks; Taylor Hilt Mitchell as Alberto Beddini. The remainder of the cast will be Surflight Theatre’s 2025 Resident Company.
The show will also feature Musical Direction by Nicholas Kaminski assisted by Matty Mitchell, Scenic Design by David Esler, Costume Design by Keith Schneider, Sound Design by Ian Wehrle, and Lighting Design by Clifford Spulock.
Remaining performances take place June 2, 3, 4, 10, 11, 12, 15 at 2:00pm; June 3, 12, 13, 14 at 8:00pm. Tickets are available for purchase online. Surflight Theatre is located at 201 Engleside Avenue in Beach Haven, New Jersey.
The stage adaptation, based on the 1935 film starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, won the 2013 Olivier Award for Best New Musical and the Evening Standard Award for Best Night Out.
The film was based on the play The Girl Who Dared. A characteristic vehicle for Astaire and Rogers, it featured a slight story of initially unrequited love, mistaken identities, and a requisite happy ending and allowed for frequent and stunning dance numbers starring the leading pair. Astaire played an American dancer appearing in a London stage show, and Rogers was cast as the dress model he falls for at first sight. Their romance is complicated when Rogers’s character mistakenly believes the smitten dancer to be a married man.
Here are more photos from the production.
The movie of Top Hat was considered probably the best of the famous Fred and Ginger dance partnership.
Top Hat is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals.
John Posada is a New Jersey based photographer specializing in photographing live theatre and music performances. Currently, John has spent the last 6 years concentrating on photographing almost 400 theater productions at over 70 different NJ theatres. Click here for John's website.
