Presentation Academy
Top Hat Theatre
2024-2025 Productions
Our Mission
Presentation Academy Top Hat Theatre Company provides quality education and experiences to those onstage, backstage, and in our audience. Theatre and the arts enrich our lives. The lessons and skills learned here empower us; through these experiences, we grow into more compassionate, inclusive, and civic-minded individuals.
Our Past
Theatre arts have a long-standing tradition at Presentation Academy; senior class members performed annual productions in the 3rd-floor classroom under the tower. Then in the early 1990s, Charlie Douglas created the first formal theatre program at Pres, building Top Hat Theatre from the ground up. We continued performing plays in that classroom, and the auditions opened up to the rest of the student body.
The program soon grew as more and more students became interested in performing in plays and musicals. We moved to Spalding University’s auditorium in the mid-1990s and expanded the program further by adding technical elements like set building, theatrical lighting, and sound. We began producing full-scale productions, now using all technical aspects, putting on shows like Grease, The Miracle Worker, Wizard of Oz, and Steel Magnolias, to name a few.
In 2009, Presentation Academy opened the Arts and Athletics Center diagonally across the street from the academic building. This building houses art classrooms, a gymnasium, a weight room, a dance studio, and our dedicated theater space and scene shop. This new space allowed us to do even larger-scale productions like Cats, Beauty and the Beast, Peter Pan, and Godspell.
Charlie Douglas passed away in the fall of 2018, and we rededicated our theater space in her honor. Without her dedication and ambition, we would not have grown to be the program we are today. Thank you, Charlie, for always inspiring us.
Our Present
Charlie’s passing left an opening in our leadership and hearts, but this gave us another opportunity to grow. Ashley Beck ‘06 took over as Artistic Director in 2019, and she recruited Elizabeth Cooley ‘07 as Co-Artistic and Technical Director shortly thereafter. These Top Hat Theatre and Pres alums brought over 30 years of combined theatrical experience and expertise to the program.
After rebranding Top Hat Theatre as the Presentation Academy Top Hat (PATH) Theatre Company, we refocused our educational goals to be more student-driven. We resurfaced old traditions, made new ones, and created high-quality works. Our students now not only build the sets, but they design those pieces as well. Additionally, student designers create costume sketches, sound cues, and lighting plots.
Students now have the opportunity to learn even more skills like using a sewing machine, serious power tools, and basic wiring skills. We also expanded the possible roles to include more traditionally marketable skills such as social media coordination, fundraising and finance management, and graphic design.
PATH Photo Gallery
The Future of PATH
It is an exhilarating time for Pres and our theatre program! Educational pedagogy has adjusted to include 21st Century Skills, which include mastery of various physical, mental, emotional, and critical skills. Theatre provides ample opportunity to master those skills; they are vital to a successful production.
As we grow, so do our students' opportunities by using innovative ideas and strategies unseen in many other schools. Theatre and the arts enforce these 21st Century Skills and are interdisciplinary with many facets of our lives. PATH does not take this charge lightly. We hope to continue producing competent, compassionate, empathetic, and critical-thinking members of our community.
We have plans in place to build a stellar and unique theatre program, drawing the specific types of students we want here at Pres: the ones who enjoy traditions, the ones who enjoy the arts, and the ones who want to be well-rounded individuals before taking on the world by storm.
We hope we see you in our seats supporting our casts and crews for many years to come!