Summer theater is as much a part of the Jersey Shore as seagulls pecking at clams. Nowhere is the tradition more vibrant than at Surflight Theatre in Beach Haven, which presented its first shows 60 years ago.
These days, Surflight operates year-round, but it’s in the warmer months when Surflight reaches back to its summer-stock roots, presenting back-to-back musicals with a resident group of actors and crew members—professionals and theater students—who move down the Shore for the summer and live next door to the theater.
“We think what we do here is special,” says Surflight’s producing artistic director, Steve Steiner. “It’s about tradition. But it’s also about entertainment. No other theater in New Jersey does as many musicals as we do over a season and certainly during the summer.”
Between Memorial Day and Labor Day, Surflight will present five musicals: On Your Toes, June 2-13; The Drowsy Chaperone, June 16-July 3; 42nd Street, July 6-25; Disney’s High School Musical, July 27-August 15; and Cabaret, August 17-September 4.
Steiner, who runs Surflight with his wife, Gail, speaks with the booming pride of a performer in his element. The Steiners left their theater careers in New York to take over Surflight in 1998. Steve Steiner, 58, whose performing credits include several Broadway appearances, spearheaded the theater’s transition in 2001 to nonprofit status as well as an agreement with the professional actors’ union Actor’s Equity.
From the outside, the 450-seat theater looks like a large, rambling house, with a gabled roof and picture windows. Inside, theatergoers are greeted with a rocking-chaired lobby, remnants from a past production of Evita. Peach-colored walls add to the welcoming warmth.
The Steiners maintain close ties with the Beach Haven community. They live year-round in town, just blocks from the theater, with their 11-year-old daughter, Christa, as well as two cats and a dog adopted from a local animal shelter.
While the Steiners’ performing experience has served as Surflight’s artistic backbone, it’s Steve’s marketing acumen that has helped Surflight ride out economic storms. He gears the scheduling of musicals to the theatergoing patterns of Surflight’s potential audience.
“Each part of the season has a certain audience,” Steiner says. “July and August is vacation time, and that means families. You want something that will appeal to the kids as well as the adults, so we’re doing High School Musical this season for that audience.”
The theater expects full houses throughout the summer. Tickets run $30 for adults, $20 for kids ages 12 and under. Discounts are available for those who buy tickets to three or more shows.
Surflight also offers a full schedule of children’s theater productions during the summer months (see page 73) and houses musical-theater training classes year round. And it operates the adjacent Showplace Ice Cream Parlour, which features a staff of singing waiters, many of them college students, dishing up the sweet summertime treats.
For performers like John Davidson, who will play two one-man concerts on July 12, the key to Surflight’s appeal is the high caliber of its productions.
“They are really doing Broadway-quality shows there on a nonprofit budget,” Davidson says. “I’m also impressed with the educational part of Steve’s mission, the younger actors who he brings in.” Davidson, a Surflight board member, has done six productions at Surflight and is in talks to appear again next summer.
“I’m a big fan of what Steve and Gail are doing,” Davidson says. “It’s about as close to Broadway as you can get out of town.”