Photo by Jeremy Daniel
This holiday season, the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts will launch a new national tour of the musical “Peter Pan,” running Dec. 6-31. With an updated script and setting, and an inclusive cast, this is not the Peter Pan of yesteryear. The production will feature the familiar Morris Isaac “Moose” Charlap-Carolyn Leigh score, with additional songs and a child actor taking on the role of Peter Pan. Tony Award nominee Lonny Price will direct this performance, with writing credits from playwright Larissa FastHorse. We recently chatted with Price, who helms a production sure to carry us off to Neverland.
Everyone has memories of “Peter Pan” from their childhood, and I wonder what your experiences were with Peter Pan and how he fits into your youth.
Well, I saw the Mary Martin version of it when I was a child, as you may have. We saw it every year, and I looked forward to that. And we had the record at home, so that was my first exposure to the work. That’s the Peter Pan I know. There’s the Disney version and all that, but the Broadway show, the musical, that score—that’s my “Peter Pan.” That’s the one that really took root in my childhood.
When you think back, were you more of a Captain Hook, a Peter Pan, a Wendy Darling, a Tinker Bell, or who were you?
I think I was Peter. I identified with him the most.
How much of this production is your vision and how much is going to be just the actors’ intuition for modern audiences?
This production is modern day, and so it will have a very different look and feel than the other productions. It takes place in the States, it’s not Victorian, and so I think it will have a very different feel than other productions. It is enormously inclusive; I have just the most beautiful rainbow cast you’ve ever seen, and I think it will feel much more inclusive in that every kid that comes to see “Peter Pan” will see themselves up there and feel like they can be in Neverland and fly and keep Tinker Bell alive and experience all those wonderful moments that it has.
Photo by Jeremy Daniel
When you do a show, as a director, it’s a creative team that supports your vision. Are there any surprises to this one? I know you are working with Native American playwright Larissa FastHorse on the script and dealing with the issues of a dated script, but are there any surprises to this creative team that you’re happy about?
We all collaborate beautifully, a very harmonious group. I am enormously grateful for Larissa, who has done an extraordinary job of not only updating the story but making it, in some ways, more human. The female characters are much more fully developed and have more texture to them. She’s just solved so many of the issues of the show that were a little questionable as time went on. She has really brought it to a new place. Amanda Green, the heir apparent, has written a brand-new song. And then we have a song we are restoring from the original production. It was cut in San Francisco by the original composer, Moose Charlap, and lyricist Carolyn Leigh, and I don’t think it has ever been heard. So I’m excited to introduce these two songs to the show that people will be unfamiliar with but hopefully welcome.
You have personal connections to the shows that you work on. Is there a moment in this “Peter Pan” that just really says this is your story and how personal it is to you?
I will say an extraordinary thing about this production is that we have a 16-year-old boy playing Peter, and he is just a piece of magic, and I can’t wait for you to see him. I can’t wait to introduce him to everybody. But what I would say is Neverland is also about the theater. I think all of us in theater have flown off to Neverland and are trying to not get old, to keep our imagination alive, our creativity and our sense of fun. And, of course, our innocence, which you have to have when you’re in the theater. I feel very much that this show is about the theater and theater people.
You said that it’s modern, set in America. What else can you tell me about this specific production?
I don’t want to give too much away. There are Indigenous people from all over the globe in this production. So that’s interesting, that’s new. I mean, honestly, that an actual boy is playing the part is sort of revolutionary, which is ridiculous but true. What I think you’re going to find is the effect that has on the story when it’s not a 40-year-old woman. You know it’s him, a real boy, and he’s beautiful, innocent, a great kid. It’s even more moving when you see a young man who is refusing to grow older and is frightened of it and wants to remain a child. There’s something very touching about it, so I think it’s going to have different values watching it than it had before. It’s always been great before, but I think our modern spin on it, and with Nolan Almeida playing the part, it’s going to be a little bit of a different experience.
There are some big, lofty ideas in “Peter Pan”—loss of youth, motherhood, good versus bad, all those things. There is stuff for kids and adults. Who do you picture this production being for?
Not because I’ve been paid by the marketing people to say it, but I think it’s for everybody. We all have an interesting relationship with growing up. I think some kids don’t want to grow up, and some kids are afraid of growing up. Some kids want to grow up. Then, when you’re older, you long for the time of freedom, innocence, and uncomplicated joy. To be serious about it, it’s very much about mortality—Captain Hook’s mortality. The Croc’s clock is mortality, and [Hook] doesn’t want to die. So, it is about time and our relationship with growing older, and I think that is omnipresent for all of us. We’re all on that spectrum, closer or not—the fear of it. There is joy to be had for parents, grandparents, kids, grandkids. I have loved this piece ever since I was a child, and I am not a kid and I still love it. I hope everyone feels the way I feel about it.
Photo by Jeremy Daniel
Have you grown up yet?
No! I don’t think any of us in the theater have grown up. If we did, we’d do something else. I think we have to sort of remain children in some way to be able to be storytellers and to find magic and beauty in the things that aren’t real. To believe in things that don’t exist. That’s also Tinker Bell. It’s all about believing in the things you don’t see necessarily but are still beautiful. It’s filled with that kind of poetry that I am very enamored of.
With all this renewed admiration and love for Barbie in this moment, I think this is Peter Pan’s moment as he flies into theaters around the country. Do you want people to leave thinking they can fly?
I think so. If we can all tap into that part of us that can fly, we all fly in different ways. I hope that people go out of the theater feeling lighter and more optimistic.
Was it hard to find Peter Pan?
Terribly hard. We cast in New York and couldn’t find him. And then we went to Los Angeles, and Nolan submitted himself. This 16-year-old kid just walked in and embodied all the colors of Peter. It felt a little like a miracle, honestly. He just was that right. [He’s a] great kid with a great family. It was very hard to cast. We just aren’t used to seeing a boy play him, so it was a little bit of a shift. I know we found the right guy.
For all we said about Barbie these days as a strong female character, I think boys need their stories told, too.
It’s hard to be a boy today. No one seems to be that interested in a cisgender boy. It’s hard for them for sure.
