Sock Hop heats up Sugar Loaf audience

On Saturday, Feb. 7, 2026, fans packed the Sugar Loaf Performing Arts Pavilion to listen to music and dance from the 1950s in a revival of a Sock Hop, the dance event typically held at high schools decades ago to help raise funds during World War II as they rocked to music from popular performers of the era like Buddy Holly, Elvis, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Dion, and others.

Music was performed Warwick’s Cicadas ’57, a retro/oldies revival band featuring a piano, lead guitar, bass, lead singers, alto saxophone, and drummer that has appeared at community events, historical society programs, and nostalgia-themed gatherings, with both 1950-60s era tunes. The event even provided an appearance of the “Big Bopper,” a tribute to J.P. Richardson by the show’s technical director and lighting designer, Brian Dunn. Ian Wen paid tribute to the father of the counter-culture, Jack Kerouac, known for his “spontaneous prose” – a breathless reference to the poems often delivered at coffee houses and similar venues at the time.

Many of the attendees, dancers, and performers wore period clothing and hairdos including poodle skirts, Bobby socks with saddle shoes or loafers, cardigan sweaters or fitted pullovers, blouses with Peter Pan collars or bow ties, pedal pushers and capri pants, ponytails, pageboys, soft curls. The men wore white T-shirts or knit polos, button-down shirts, blue jeans with cuffs, khaki pants or chinos, leather jackets (thanks to Marlon Brando and James Dean), letterman sweaters or jackets, saddle shoes, loafers, or Converse-style sneakers.

This sock hop began with the usual group behavioral concerns of the period: “Principal Purdy” (Joan Dunn, spouse of the technical director) began with a deadpanned announcement of house rules regarding the prohibition of “gyrating” dancing and the avoidance of contact with the “square safe” geometric area of personal space that defined erogenous zones of the teenage body. She was backed up by “School Administrator Ernest Stigwood” (Chuck Ragsdale), who reiterated the house rules and who sang a hilarious tune about the challenges of having to explain sexual education to teenagers, one of the subjects that was part of the school curriculum.

The event was presented by the Core Theatre Group and produced by Chuck Ragsdals. With over 30 years performance experience, Ragsdale has appeared in several national tours - the most recent being the Broadway National company of the Tony Award-winning “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder” under the direction of Darko Tresnjak. He is an arts educator has served on the acting faculty of NYU Tisch/Molloy College for over 20 years. He teaches at the Warwick Center for Performing Arts.