Surflight Theatre Returns A

Surflight Theatre Returns A By: Victoria Ford

Photo credit: Victoria Ford

Surflight Theatre to re-open June 2017.

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fter two years spent sitting, untouched, while many negotiated its fate, Long Beach Island’s beloved Surflight Theatre bursts back onto the scene with the celebrated moviebased musical “Footloose” on June 23, with a full season of musicals

Complete with metaphorical allusions to the phoenix, the theatre complex at Engleside Avenue in the heart of Beach Haven is set to reopen under the day-today operation of Steve Steiner in his Producing Artistic Director capacity, with his leading lady Gail by his side as Production Manager and Associate Artistic Director.

The entire complex (including The Show Place Ice Cream Parlour, scenery/tech shop, cast housing, a residential home, offices and other living quarters) is owned by real estate investor and Broadway producer Al Parinello, who acts as landlord to the tenant, the nonprofit Ocean Professional Theatre Company. As of mid-April, Steiner is close to being finished with casting and near fully staffed; $65,000 in tickets had already been sold and 45 groups booked, representing another $50,000 – a promising start. He was still seeking volunteers for Joe’s Place, ushers, and an army of volunteers for cleanup and fixup. Volunteers are needed on an ongoing basis. For more information, contact [email protected]. Amidst a flurry of media interviews and phone calls tying up loose ends, Steiner chatted about the arduous road that has led to the new season.

Surflight Theatre ran successfully for 65 seasons, survived Superstorm Sandy, but then, after a failed restructuring, which involved the Board of Trustees’ decision to fire the Steiners. The theater closed in early 2015. In the interim, Steiner created and ran his Ocean Professional Theatre Company.

As soon as Surflight closed, Steiner said his focus was clear: “We’ve got to find a solution.”

“I used to be very vocal about what I was doing, to try and muster support,” he said. But he found that was not always the most effective way to get things done. So, for the last 14 months or so he has stayed very quiet. When the people at OceanFirst Foundation decided they were interested in backing the theatre, they wanted an investor at a minimum of 25 percent equity. Enter Parinello. Continued on page 6

Summer 2017

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Steiner and Parinello go back more than a decade, Steiner said, to 2004 when they worked together on “Broadway at the Boardwalk” at Trump Plaza in Atlantic City and down in Florida. So they had a longstanding relationship and mutual respect. Parinello, who owns homes in Bergen County and Brigantine, owned radio station WJSE in Somers Point, produced concerts at Taj Mahal and Trump Marina, and for the last 10 years has produced “The Fantasticks” in New York, is well positioned to take on the project. Steiner pitched it to Parinello in December, and once “he got a comfort level about it,” the deal was struck in February with the lien holder, TD Bank. While the sale price has not been disclosed, Steiner said it’s very close to the $2 million auction bid from last August that fell through.

Steve Steiner Opening Up the Theatre. As of the real estate closing, which was set for Photo credit: Victoria Ford April 27, Surflight would be 58 days from opening, which, from Steiner’s viewpoint, was daunting but do-able. As he was speaking, he seemed to be taking a quick mental inventory of lists upon lists of needed repairs, replacements and housekeeping tasks.

Dressing rooms would get new carpeting, the [450] house seats would be steamcleaned and HEPA vacuumed, a new sound system and lighting would be installed, tables and glassware at Show Place would be replaced and a new washer, dryer and dumpsters would be purchased. The shop would need to be cleaned out and re-equipped so it can start fresh.

Overall, Steiner said, he is feeling very positive. The buildings are in better shape than anticipated, he said, just needing “a lot of cleaning and sprucing.”

Steiner has reached out to a lot of former colleagues, in trying to reassemble people with previous experience in order to minimize the learning curve, and is confident in the “great people coming in” in terms of music directors, choreographers and longtime actors (he mentioned Andrew Foote by name). A former Showplace manager will train the new staff.

Reconnecting has been an emotional process, he said. The last couple months in general have played out like a whirlwind as he endeavored “to keep this thing on its trajectory” while concluding other projects, including his role as Caiaphas in Jesus Christ Superstar at Bucks County’s Bristol Riverside Theatre.

For the sake of simplifying and streamlining, the theatre will revert to the ticketing system it used in 2010, according to Steiner.

“We have to be very careful about money in the first year,” he said.

Surflight ran into some problems with debt beginning in 2008, and by 2011 was $4 million in the hole, and the Board of Trustees filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The bad luck continued when a fire at a neighboring business on Easter Sunday 2012 damaged the complex. Superstorm Sandy struck six months later, flooding the theatre with 4 feet of water. The organization floundered for a couple more Continued on page 7

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Photo credit: Victoria Ford

Positioning signs at the Show Place Ice Cream Parlour.

years before declaring Chapter 7 in February 2015, its total debt of $3.78 million exceeding its property value – $2 million owed to TD Bank, and $1.5 million owed to Show Place Inc.

According to reports by local newsmagazine The SandPaper, the theatre also owed $10,000 in back taxes and $5,800 in water and sewer bills, as well as more than a quarter-million dollars to claimants such as Suzy Yengo, the president and CEO of the Catch a Rising Star comedy club circuit, several theatrical rights organizations, Atlantic City Electric, New Jersey Natural Gas, Xerox and Staples.

The winning bid at the public auction was later rejected by John M. McDonnell, the Red Bank attorney assigned as trustee in the action by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court District of New Jersey, who determined the amount was not enough to satisfy Surflight’s creditors and then filed a “Notice of Abandonment.” A second auction took place in December, where TD Bank bought it for $100.

With regard to lessons he has learned from the financial troubles, Steiner said during the time he was running OPTC, “we learned how to do things less expensively.” He intends to bring a more frugal, resourceful sensibility to the theatre this time around, “minimizing expenses wherever possible.” Steiner believes in Surflight’s sustainability, based on its success during his tenure from 1998 to 2010, and blames the troubles of the past on the Board of Trustees’ misguided business decisions after he was terminated.

The Steiners have lived in Beach Haven 19 years – this year would have marked their 20th Surflight season if they hadn’t been let go, he noted. Looking ahead, Steiner said he aims “to create something that will outlive all of us.” In the span of the next 10 years, he wants to establish institutional memory and design a succession plan that ensures a smooth transition after his retirement.

The vision is to make Surflight as good as it was at its best; for its longtime loyal patrons to come back to something they’ve known and missed and for newcomers to experience a level of professional theatre that belies its small-town beach location.

The official announcement declares: “The theatre will reopen with the original mission of its founder, Joseph P. Hayes: to serve as a training ground for young artists in a supportive summer stock environment and to provide quality entertainment to the residents and vacationers of Long Beach Island.”

Following “Footloose,” which closes July 9, will be “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” July 11-23; Disney’s “Newsies” (a first-time show for Surflight), July 25-Aug. 13; “Hairspray,” Aug. 15-27; “Million Dollar Quartet” (another new one), Aug. 29-Sept. 10; and “Home for the Holidays: A Surflight Celebration,” Dec. 7-17. Continued on page 8

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Concerts are still being booked but will include John Davidson on July 31; the Coasters, Drifters and Platters, Aug. 7; and the New Millenium Jazz Band Plays the Sinatra Songbook, Nov. 25. The Education Division expects to present the high school version of “Rock of Ages” with local students Oct. 20, 21 and 22. The address for ticket orders and donations is P. O. Box 1155, Beach Haven, NJ 08008. Tickets may also be purchased in person at the box office or by phone: 609-492-9477. Visit surflight.org or email [email protected] for more.

A Brief History:

The Engleside Avenue address has been home to Surflight since 1954. Its earliest seasons, from 1950 to 1953, took place inside a huge tent that could seat 2,200, then an old meat market, then one garage and then another where it finally settled – the former mechanic’s garage (with a tin roof and a seating capacity of just over 300) that it would rent for a dozen years and eventually purchase. The theatre building that stands today was built in 1987, and the original building, tucked behind it, serves as the set construction and costume shops. Founding Producer Joseph P. Hayes introduced the Children’s Theatre in 1956. Show Place opened next door in 1975. The following year, Hayes died of a heart attack. A new corporation, HML Productions, was formed with Show Place owner Scott Henderson as President. In 1977, a former boarding house with 16 bedrooms and nine bathrooms at the corner of Dolphin and Bay Avenues in Beach Haven was purchased for cast housing.

The nonprofit organization that bears Hayes’ name was formed in 1980 as a fundraising vehicle for the Intern and Apprentice Program and for the eventual purchase of Surflight from Henderson. In 1986 a neighboring residential house was bought for staff housing. Plans were developed to build a new, larger, codecompliant theatre for $1.9 million. HML Productions and Show Place are merged to formally unite the enterprises and to raise capital for the new building. The theatre itself achieved not-for-profit status in 2001. In the ’90s, Surflight housed the Our Gang Players, got an $11,000 minimakeover, streamlined its season to 16 weeks to cater to the summer vacationers and partnered with Morisson’s Restaurant on the bay to entertain guests there with “Surfy the Dancing Surflight Dog” and select other characters.

In 1999, Surflight became an Actors’ Equity theatre, joined the New Jersey Theatre Alliance, and began to build a reputation throughout Ocean County and beyond as a year-round center for the arts – offering weekday matinees, holiday shows and the Surflight Theatre Arts Resource School (STARS).

In April 2003, at the Governor’s Conference on Tourism, Surflight Theatre received the prestigious Governor’s Tourism Arts Award. Total attendance at Surflight performances that year was 62,587, compared to 37,000 in 1997.

Over the next several years the theatre continued to grow, expand and widen its appeal, make capital improvements, beef up marketing efforts and nurture partnerships with local businesses.

By 2008 annual attendance exceeded 78,000.