by Elisa Lichtenbaum
Exciting news for theater fans! Great Performances’ ninth annual “Broadway’s Best” line-up is in full swing. The line-up continues with Irving Berlin’s Top Hat, now streaming on pbs.org/gperf, the PBS app, and the Great Performances YouTube channel.
Three-time Astaire Award winner Phillip Attmore and Amara Okereke star in the tap-happy musical inspired by the iconic 1935 Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movie musical. Directed and choreographed by Tony winner Kathleen Marshall (Anything Goes), the acclaimed Chichester Festival Theatre revival features “Cheek to Cheek,” “Puttin’ on the Ritz,” and other Irving Berlin classics.
Before you enjoy Irving Berlin’s Top Hat, get to know Phillip Attmore with these five fun facts.
1) He started tap dancing at age three.
Phillip Attmore first discovered tap dancing at age three when his older brother William — a child actor who was a Mouseketeer on The New Mickey Mouse Club in the 70s — taught him a few steps. It was love at first shuffle. At age four he got an agent, years of dance lessons and competitions followed, and by the time the Pasadena, California wunderkind was 11, he won 90 trophies for his dancing. Three decades later, Attmore is enjoying a full-circle moment, portraying a role originated by one of his idols.
“From age three, I was watching every film starring Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, these brilliant song-and-dance men who embody musical theater. I performed ‘Top Hat, White Tie and Tails’ for the first time when I was seven. I’m now playing my dream role and getting to pay homage to one of my heroes, as well as to the great Black performers who influenced and danced alongside Astaire, but didn’t have the same platform as him,” Attmore said in this 2025 London Theatre interview.
2) He was a contestant on So You Think You Can Dance.
In 2009, Attmore competed in the sixth season of Fox’s So You Think You Can Dance and was among the first three tap dancers in the series to make it into the Top 20. His exuberant audition, an homage to tap dance legends Jimmy Slyde, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Gene Kelly, impressed the judges and landed him a coveted spot in the dance competition series. Watch Attmore’s So You Think You Can Dance audition here.
Fun Fact: Attmore’s fellow SYTYCD contestants included future Hamilton star and West Side Story Oscar winner Ariana DeBose and choreographer Ellenore Scott, recipient of a 2026 Tony nomination for Ragtime and choreographer of the Tony-nominated musical Titaníque. (Learn about Titaníque’s journey to Broadway with its star and creator Marla Mindelle in this newly released Great Performances: Stagebound episode.)
3) He has starred in six Broadway shows.
Attmore made his Broadway debut in 2005 as a swing in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and most recently appeared on Broadway in the 2017 revival of Hello, Dolly! starring Bette Midler. He starred in the 2008 Broadway premiere of Irving Berlin’s White Christmas, featuring joyous, Tony-nominated choreography by Randy Skinner (Great Performances: 42nd Street). A highly sought-after tap specialist, Attmore was part of a quartet of tap dancing train porters in Roundabout Theatre Company’s 2015 revival of On the Twentieth Century starring Kristin Chenoweth; performed Savion Glover’s dazzling tap moves in George C. Wolfe’s 2016 Noble Sissle/Eubie Blake musical Shuffle Along starring Audra McDonald; and served up some fancy footwork in After Midnight, a 2013 jazz revue celebrating the heyday of Harlem’s Cotton Club, directed and choreographed by Warren Carlyle.
WATCH: Tap dancing porters Phillip Attmore, Rick Faugno, Drew King, and Richard Riaz Yoder tap their way around The Big Apple in a peppy promo for Roundabout Theatre Company’s 2015 revival of On the Twentieth Century.
4) Tap dance superstar Jared Grimes is his cousin.
Tap dancing talent runs in Attmore’s family. His cousin Jared Grimes, an Astaire Award winner like Attmore, choreographed New York City Center Encores!’ 2021 production of The Tap Dance Kid and dazzled audiences and Tony voters with his electrifying tap solo in the 2022 Broadway revival of Funny Girl – to name just a couple of his impressive credits.
The super talented cousins shared the stage in After Midnight on Broadway and performed a Nicholas Brothers-inspired showstopping tap number in the 2012 Encores! production of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, choreographed by Randy Skinner.
When Grimes choreographed a reimagined jazz-funk version of 42nd Street at Chicago’s Drury Lane Theatre in 2017 and Minnesota’s Ordway Center for the Performing Arts in 2019, he cast Attmore as ingenue Billy Lawler. “Luminous Attmore is a dancer of technical brilliance and panache who lights up the stage,” The Chicago Sun-Times raved, calling the production “thundering, dazzling…and downright revolutionary.”
WATCH: Phillip Attmore and company perform Jared Grimes’ dazzling choreography in a trailer for the reimagined 2019 production of 42nd Street at the Ordway.
5) He played a tap dancing trash man in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.
New York City trash collection has never been happier, tappier, and peppier than “Your Personal Trash Man Can,” an exuberant musical number in the final season of Prime Video’s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Phillip Attmore, Jake Corcoran, RJ Higton, and Thomas Sutter turn up the heat as tap dancing garbage men in the number, part of “Private Waste Management: A Musical Journey in Three Acts,” a mob-produced industrial Midge (Rachel Brosnahan) is forced to do.
Choreographer Marguerite Derricks and songwriting team Curtis Moore and Thomas Mizer scored 2023 Emmy nominations for the Golden Age-inspired production number, which featured Phillip & Co. tap dancing with trash can lids on their feet à la Gene Kelly, Michael Kidd, and Dan Dailey in the 1955 MGM musical It’s Always Fair Weather.
WATCH: Phillip Attmore, Jake Corcoran, RJ Higton, and Thomas Sutter perform “Your Personal Trash Man Can” in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.
Watch a preview of Great Performances: Irving Berlin’s Top Hat.
Great Performances “Broadway’s Best” line-up is part of Broadway and Beyond (thirteen.org/broadway), a special collection of must-see theater and performing arts programs from The WNET Group premiering in May and June for our broadcast, streaming, and YouTube audiences.
Elisa Lichtenbaum | @elisavontap
Elisa Lichtenbaum is a Senior Writer at The WNET Group, where she is editor of the monthly THIRTEEN program guide and writes about arts and culture.
