“Steel Pier,” the first show of Surflight Theatre’s 2023 season, is exhausting for both its characters and performers and perhaps for its audience.

The setting for the Kander and Ebb musical is a dance marathon being staged at the Atlantic City landmark in 1933. Contestants, hoping to win not only the prize money, but fame, must dance for 45 minutes, take a 15-minute break, dance, break, dance, break … ad nauseam. The competition goes on for days and nights.