Community theater thrives at Top Hat
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STRUTHERS -- On the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States, Top Hat Productions will open a musical inspired by the aftermath of those events.
"Come From Away," created by Irene Sankoff and David Hein, was nominated for seven Tony Awards and ran for 1,669 performances on Broadway, and Top Hat's staging will be its area premiere.
"It's about these two planes, many planes actually, that landed during 9/11, and more than tripled the size of this small town," said Brian Palumbo, director of Top Hat. "All of them came together to help each other build a sense of community in the midst of all the madness. It's a feel-good production of how people, even in this day and age, can come together."
Melanie Lucas directs the musical with music direction by Dalton Stoops and choreography by Keith Stepanic.
The cast features Amy Burd, Connie Cassidy, Kai Green, Sarah Kinser, Renee Johntony, Michelle Jones, Connie Leathers, Jessica Ludovici, Alex MacDuff, Diane Marie, Sarah Martz, Marissa McKenzie, Al McKinnon, Patience Miles, Brian Palumbo, Dan Pappalardo and Julie Palumbo Villa.
Top Hat is a volunteer community theater company that covers a wide range of theatrical entertainment.
"We took an old church and converted it into a theater," Palumbo said. "They do amazing theater, you know what I mean? They do musical theater, they do straight plays and they do dinner theater."
Top Hat technical director Jeff Chan was able to pull back the curtain on what goes into making a theater production, and specifically, the technical aspect of it.
"A technical director does a couple things, one of them is ... special effects, lighting design and sound design. Lighting design is obviously all the lights for all the scenes in the play," Chan said. "Sound is the music, microphones and then the mix.
"When I see what the set has created, what the cast is doing, what the director is putting together with live people, then the lighting and sound designer tries to bring that all to life."
Community outreach is a big part of Top Hat, with its proceeds going back into the community. Top Hat also engages in various community programs, such as Around the World in Plates, which is meant to promote multiculturalism and food education.
"Around the World in Plates is about culture and being proud of your culture through cooking," Palumbo said. "Each week, the kids learn cooking from a different perspective other than their own, and they learn to mashup, be proud of their culture, their heritage and share it instead of fighting about it. And also they learn some kitchen skills while they're doing it."
Top Hat was started in 1992 by a group of friends with mutual interests, according to Rochelle Joy, co-founder of Top Hat and a member of its board of directors.
"It just started as a bunch of teenagers that wanted to do something in the community to make people happy," Joy said. "It was Brian's (Palumbo) brainchild to put together a group, and we started out doing festivals at Catholic churches that we would have during the summer."
Over the years,Top Hat has expanded and now is located in the Fairview Arts and Outreach Center, 4220 Youngstown-Poland Road, Struthers.
"This is kind of like one miracle after another, all because teenagers wanted to make a difference in the community," Joy said.
If you go …
WHAT: The musical "Come From Away"
WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Sept. 11, 12, 18 and 19 and 2:30 p.m. Sept. 13 and 20
WHERE: Fairview Arts & Outreach Center, 4220 Youngstown-Poland Road, Struthers
HOW MUCH: Tickets are $19.50 and are available online at tophatproductions.thundertix.com.