BWW Reviews: PETER PAN is Enchanting! Arizona Broadway Theatre's Production is a Triumph! Errigo is Amazing!

Arizona Broadway Theatre has pulled out all the stops and mounted a production of Peter Pan that is unparalleled in its charm and dazzle. The stage is a canvas on which William Boles's lavish sets and William Kirkham's brilliant lighting effects and ChristiAnne Myers's costumes befit the fantasy. It is in this realm of enchantment that David Errigo, Jr. delivers the quintessential Peter Pan ~ puckish, daring, self-assured, clever, poignant, stubborn. Errigo's performance is nothing short of breathtaking as he flies through the air with the greatest of ease and agility and breathes life and voice into the boy who won't grow up.

Errigo is accompanied by a cast that's like a box of assorted candies, rich and diverse in texture and flavor. Kiel Klaphake's Captain Hook is deliciously sinister ~ and he portrays as well an appropriately officious but nevertheless lovable Mr. Darling. Alissa Tucker's Tiger Lily is rich and exotic. Jeremy Crawford is joyful and elfish, the perfect foil for Hook. Even Nana and the Crocodile (both animated by Isaac Wesley Wilson), the Kangaroo (DJ Petrosino), the Ostrich (Carly Makani Copp), and the Mermaid (Renee Kathleen Koher, who does a marvelous tourn as Mrs. Darling) are nonpareils to a cast loaded with talent. Add the sprinkles of Tinkerbell's fairy dust, and this Peter Pan is the perfect dessert for children of all ages.

Kurtis Overby's choreography is stunning, and no moment in the play exemplifies his artistry better than the show stopping Ugg-a-Wugg scene. It's the beat-beat-beat of the tom-tom and the pulsating movements of Tiger Lily and the Indian ensemble that reaches a crescendo where it's just too hard to stay seated.

It is 60 years now since Peter Pan debuted on Broadway. The story still captures the imagination. It is being reprised later this year on NBC with Christopher Walken in the role of Hook. And Pan, a revisionist version of J.M. Barrie's tale, is due to be released next year. But dollars to donuts, ABT's production is the one you don't want to miss. It runs through August 17th.

Photo credit to Mike Benedetto and Arizona Broadway Theatre.

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