Topic: Peter Pan (Ballet)

Anthony De Luca

Date: 2018-11-03 12:58 EST
Cast

Peter Pan - James Willis Wendy - Josette Wheeler John - Doran Ilnaren / Robert Mallory Michael - Rick Harker / Alexei Storm Mrs. Darling - Eeva Cohen Liza - Serena Smythe Tiger Lily - Pearl Fand Hook / Mr. Darling - Anthony De Luca Smee - Christian Benoit Tinker Bell - Merethyl Benoit Lost Boys - Beatrice Granger, Martin Granger, & Lianne Granger Pirates - Darren Shaw, Michael Blanchard, & Alexei Barinov Mermaids - Zahan Granger, Katy Lonergan, & Serena Smythe Fairies - Mairead Harker, Julianne Dodd, & Sofia Aldrich Peter's Shadow - Peter Radcliffe / Lyneth Granger Nana - Anya De Luca Tiger Lily's Warriors - Margaret Lassiter, Lila Granger, Catie Harker, Daisy Marlowe Crocodile - Eluari D'Meron, Thom Garland, & Penny

Casting Note: The parts of John, Michael, and Peter's Shadow are shared roles. Special thanks to the Shanachie STARS for their help with this performance.

Anthony De Luca

Date: 2018-11-03 13:16 EST
Act I

The ballet opens in the Darling children's room. It's a pleasant scene while Michael, John, Wendy and their dog, Nana, play one last time before the evening folds. Mr. and Mrs. Darling come into their bedroom and prepare the children for bed. Mr. and Mrs. Darling are going to a dinner party after the children are tucked in.

When the children finally fall asleep, their parents leave and the maid returns to her quarters. After things quiet down, Tinkerbell, Peter Pan's fairy, flies through the open window with Peter Pan quickly following. Peter Pan is frantically looking for his lost shadow. He finds his shadow, but he can't get it to stick to him. Wendy wakes up to see Peter Pan's dilemma.

She takes out a needle and thread and sews Peter Pan and his shadow back together. John and Michael finally wake up to the evening's commotion. Peter Pan, with the help of Tinkerbell's fairy dust, teaches all of them how to fly. The children fly out the window following Peter Pan to Never Never Land.

Wendy, Michael, John, Peter Pan and Tinkerbell arrive in Never Never Land in the evening. Tinkerbell flies down to Tootles, one of the Lost Boys, and tells him that Peter Pan has brought some prey with him. Tootles takes out his bow and arrow and shoots Wendy down from the sky. When Peter Pan tells them what they have done, they realize Tinkerbell had tricked them out of jealousy.

Tinkerbell heals Wendy and a celebration follows. Their celebration is cut short, however, when Captain Hook and his posse emerge onto the scene. The Lost Boys scatter in the forest. Captain Hook only wants to battle Peter Pan. As they begin to fight, Captain Hook hears a loud ticking sound. He realizes that it's the crocodile that bit off his hand and swallowed a clock. Captain Hook and his crew flee to their ship.

Act II

Back in the home of the Lost Boys Wendy prepares dinner and reads them a story after they have eaten. After the Boys retire to their beds, Wendy and Peter are left alone. They start to fall in love, but Peter Pan returns to his juvenile self and flies up to his bed. Wendy grabs her needle and thread and mends the Boys' tattered clothing. After a while, she falls asleep. Moments later Captain Hook and his crew break into the home and kidnap all of the children except for Peter Pan - Captain Hook couldn't find him. Peter Pan wakes up to find everyone missing. Tinkerbell quickly explains to him what happened.

Peter Pan and Tinkerbell fly to Captain Hook's ship, the Jolly Roger. Meanwhile, Captain Hook and his gangly crew are celebrating what they think is their victory. They start pushing the children to walk the plank, where beneath it the crocodile waits. Peter Pan comes to their rescue before the children are pushed overboard. A great fight takes place between Peter Pan and Captain Hook. Eventually, Captain Hook is overpowered and falls into the water with the crocodile. The Lost Boys take over the ship now that the pirates have no leader. Peter Pan, Tinkerbell, the Lost Boys, Clara and her brothers celebrate their victory.

The celebration dies down and Wendy realizes that she is quite homesick. She doesn't want to stay a child forever; she wants to go home. Clara and her brothers tell everyone goodbye. Tinkerbell sprinkles her fairy dust on them and they fly home.

Wendy, Michael, and John come home to find Mr. and Mrs. Darling, along with Liza and Nana, stricken with grief over their disappearance. As soon as they show up, everyone is happy and tears of joy are shed. Wendy had asked Peter Pan if he would like to come back with her, but unlike Wendy, he didn't want to grow up. ((You all know the drill. Here's where to post for your characters, be they members of the cast, crew, or audience. And remember to have fun with it! :) ))

Winter Pearl

Date: 2018-11-06 20:42 EST
Leader of the tribe, that was Tiger Lily. Well, not quite, she was a chief's daughter in the original story. The best part of the production for Pearl was working with all the kids. There was a point in time where she had wanted to make teaching her vocation. Her parents had reminded her that not all teachers were of the math, reading, and history variety. One day, she might be teaching dance full time, but right now it was time for her own wings to be spreading as she helped the warriors stay in step.

Sira

Date: 2018-11-06 21:34 EST
Sira had been remiss in following the theater company's offerings. She'd missed the gala, missed several shows, just not like her. She'd passed over the advertisements and allowed herself to be too busy. Then she ran into someone at the Inn who'd told her about this latest show and....how could she resist'

She'd missed opening night, and though she certainly had time to wait to maybe make a weekend showing, she rifled through her closet to throw something together and just go before she could give herself another excuse not to.

Peter Pan wasn't her favorite show, but it was always a fun one, and she'd never seen it done as a ballet. From the first strains of music to the final curtain call, she found it a delightful showing. She applauded heartily at the finale and left pleased that she'd taken the time show up.

And of course, Bryn would have made a wonderful Nana, but she left the big dog at home.

Josette Wheeler

Date: 2018-12-10 20:21 EST
Wendy Moira Angela Darling. The slender girl stands at the edge of the window in her forget-me-not blue nightgown, the panes flung wide as her ballet slipper clad toes poise en pointe upon the edge. Gossamer light curtains billow out with the night air, teasing whispers of adventure as they briefly brush against her dark barrel curls and cheek, before escaping beyond the safety of the nursery walls into the night.

That teasing breeze draws a few wisps of the girl's hair into a dance, tugging her night dress like an eager child calling her to come and play—wanting Wendy to follow that celestial call to the stars for a much needed adventure. She'd watched the stars a million times from this same window, with an ache of raw longing and unspoken wishes that remained poised and waiting to be recognized in the delicate hollow of her throat.

Yet on this night—this particular night the stars seemed to wink at each other with a cheeky, knowing kind of glow.

The divine scent of her Mother's perfume still lingered in the nursery even after the last swish of her exquisite gown disappeared through the door to attend a most elegant affair at the dining room of 27 with Father. Wendy liked to imagine the perfume was made of exotic flowers from faraway lands with hidden caves of glittering sapphires and enchanted mermaid lagoons. The perfume was a lingering reminder of her Mother's presence over her three children, even after the night lights were lit and left behind to be her eyes while she was gone. But even now, that reminder was being gradually blown away by the same beckoning breeze of the open window that was drawing Wendy to a land of forgetting.

A brilliant, verdant green streak of light tears through the night's sky with the trajectory of an unstoppable comet, with a brilliant little tail blazing behind him like a little gold flame. The girl shivers slightly, oblivious to the chill in the air, for the tremors she experiences are not those of fear, but anticipation as her heart races on the palpitating precipice of flight. A boy with a pied piper's music in his voice and impish mischief in his smile slowly extends a beckoning hand out to her.

Would I" Could I...fly"

Nana's barks just below the window break the dreamy spell of her quiet reverie. Wendy is a clever girl. She can hear the unique difference in the tone of Nana's language and easily discern between her happy and unhappy barks and the ones that warn of danger. However, it was difficult to heed Nana's warning on such a night. For this clever girl longed to leave behind the mundane things of this world, even if only for a little while. The expectations and the pressures of what it was to be a "polite" young lady in such a society, only to grow up to become a woman and be expected to keep a home just so. To worry about such things as what the neighbors would think as Father did.

In her most secret of heart of hearts, this particular little Wendy Bird brazenly hoped to broaden her horizons beyond even the most gilded of cages, so she could choose instead to fearlessly cross swords with pirates, or roam the open planes and forests with the brave warrior Tiger Lily and a tribe of kindred spirits of the same adventurous ilk.

Faith

Trust

Pixie Dust

The girl always held a fierce hope in her heart for as long as she could remember and when she takes the boy's hand to take that first, breathless step into flight, it's that same hope and trust that grants her the ability to fly as much as Tinkerbell's magic dust.

She's still too young to know the crushing weight of dashed dreams, or to have felt the shackles of fear weighing her ankles down to prevent her from taking flight. No doubt or fear—there's no room for that here, as the Second Start to the Right shines like a beckoning beacon in the night sky.

Before the night is through, she'd find the adventure she thirsted for. She'd dance with a few shadows—face both Pan's, Hooks, Tink's and her own, become reunited with the beloved pet wolf from her imaginings that followed her everywhere across the lands of Neverland with its Lost Boys. She'd walk the plank with shoulders squared and chin held high, be shot out of the sky under the orders of a fiery little fairy, only to be saved from an untimely death by a gifted acorn kiss. By the time she returns home at the chime of Big Ben's witching hour to the open window, the tic tock of the crocodile's clock finally ran down on Hook's fate and this particular adventure.

Wendy chose to grow up on her own terms that night as she slipped back through the open window of the nursery—without Pan's fear of it, or her parent's expectations of who she should be. She'll have new adventures after the curtain draws to a close of course, ones that beckon her beyond the tedious task of mending things and playing "Mother" to Lost Boys. For there are always new stars to wish on and explore, dances to be had and she knows now that the ability to fly will forever remain within herself. She'd keep it close like a hidden secret or kiss in the shadowed dimple of her smile. A rare light of hope that is never extinguished.

Courageous Girl.