Peter Pan Starts Sept 2004 --

[CapnHook]

Posted: 7/20/03 at 1:28pm

I am interested in hearing your thoughts about Cathy playing Pan once more for the 100th Anniversary tour.

Do you think the show will make it to Broadway? Should it?

Updated On: 7/20/03 at 01:28 PM

[broadwayguy2]

Posted: 7/20/03 at 1:34pm

I am sick of Rigby in the role. I want someone new. She is good as Peter Pan -- but ...it's just over kill. Not to mention how it is always a low budget show when she does it.

[squiggy]

Posted: 7/20/03 at 1:50pm

Is Seussical done?

[broadwayguy2]

Posted: 7/20/03 at 1:52pm

the tour ends this year and a non-equity company goes out after.

[BrdwyThtr]

Posted: 7/20/03 at 2:08pm

Peter Pan does not need to go to Broadway. It was just there in '99.

[CapnHook]

Posted: 7/20/03 at 6:15pm

A SEUSSICAL tour is still going on, but not with Cathy. Her Seuss adventure ended a few weeks or so ago. The tour was 2000% better than the Broadway production, they really cleaned it up!.. and then some!

CATS, RENT, THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, etc. have all been on Broadway longer than PETER PAN's last run. To say it was "just on Broadway" isn't right. The show might of lasted the past few years. But it didn't.

My thinking is that this will be Cathy Rigby's final production of PETER PAN. The tour is to celebrate the 100th Anniversary, and if she were to bring it to Broadway, it would also commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Mary Martin production. I think having Cathy do it is a good choice, she masters the role, and she is the best flier. Getting someone new risks losing the magic. However, someone new is not too far away.

Now I understand she has played the role off and on the past decade, and I can understand why you would think this is "overkill." I still thinks she deserves to do it again. If she leaves, she needs to go out with a SHABANG!

[BillyLawlor]

Posted: 7/20/03 at 8:58pm

I don't want it to go to Broadway. It was just there. It was a good show, and had a good run. Let's leave it at that. I think the tour is unneeded, too.

[broadwayguy2]

Posted: 7/20/03 at 9:01pm

She doesn't "deserve" to play it at all.

[BwayTheatre11]

Posted: 7/20/03 at 10:31pm

I never did like Peter Pan. It always had scared me! Don't ask me why!

[BrdwyThtr]

Posted: 7/20/03 at 10:58pm

I saw her in the tour. Very good performance. I don't think she needs to do it again.

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 7/21/03 at 12:05am

Did Clay Aiken turn it down?

[luluhed]

Posted: 7/21/03 at 6:48pm

I love the idea of Clay playing Peter, good suggestion!

[FrontRow]

Posted: 7/21/03 at 10:12pm

I think it's damn well time a young man played Peter, not a middle-aged woman!!!

Clay from AI, not a bad idea, but I'm sure there are -- and always have been -- plenty of guys in the current Bway musical talent pool who could do the part.

I don't even find Mary Martin convincing when I've watched the old TV version. I don't know who decided this part should be played by a female, and why everyone's stuck with it all these years, but the most ridiculous thing is that females are always so freaking old. He's the boy who won't grow up, darnit!!


(Sorry, but this is something that's bugged me for a while)

[BrdwyThtr]

Posted: 7/21/03 at 10:14pm

I never got that it was a woman either. You can TELL it's a woman. At least make it believable!

[PJ]

Posted: 7/21/03 at 10:33pm

When I was little I never let myself believe it was a woman. I always told myself it was just a man who happened to be pretty, lol.

[broadwayguy2]

Posted: 7/21/03 at 11:01pm

Peter was originaly played by a woman for two reasons ::

1.) At that time, labour laws said that kids could not appear onstage after 9 PM and as many of the principals are kids in the show, all kids were played by small women.

2.) Peter Pan conforms to many traditions of British Pantomime, including having a 'good fairy/godmother' character (Tinkerbell), a 'dame' (a female character played by a male -- Nana the dog), and the pricipal boy being played by a woman dressed in a traditional style of clothes for that character type -- a pair of tights/ close fitting pants and a loose fitting blouse belted at the waist that even though the character was male left no doubt that the performer was a female (Peter Pan).

Those traditions just carried over. it was until the 1980s at the Royal National Thetare that it started to become more common for Peter to be played by a male in major productions. The last four major major productions of Peter Pan in the West End/London have starred men.

[FrontRow]

Posted: 7/22/03 at 2:20pm

Is this fact or just your surmising?

As for (1), that doesn't address why Peter Pan couldn't be played by a young man.
As for (2), the musical was created by Americans, I doubt they were trying to mimic "British pantomime."

I think it was just a dumb idea the first time, but since Mary Martin is so beloved nobody challenged it in the future. Good for the West End...but has there ever been a major U.S./Bway production starring a male?

And again...the female part is only half of it. Why are the women who get cast so old?

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 7/22/03 at 2:26pm

As I posted on another thread, I saw B. D. Wong do it a few years back. He toured with it.

[broadwayguy2]

Posted: 7/22/03 at 3:16pm

That is fact.

Yes, it COULD have been played by a man, but at the time, the practice was for women to play the children's roles -- whether the role was male or female.

The reason it was carried over to the musical was because that was the role had always been played AND it was adapted spefically for Mary Martin -- It was her idea and her husband produced it.

The only major U.S. productions starring men have been films -- the Disney animated feature, 'Hook' starring Robin Williams, and the feature film comin out at Christmas this year staring Jeremy Sumpter.

It is cast with an older female because that was what Mary martin was -- a woman in her late fourties - early fifties. Future productions just stuck with that example.

I have seen it played by both men and women and I have played the title role myself in both the play and musical. I have always felt that it plays better with a male.

[Phantom05]

Posted: 7/22/03 at 3:27pm

I don't think Peter Pan should return to Broadway for at least another ten years! It is one of those musicals, that when you see it to much, it gets boring really fast!!! I have always enjoyed the show, but I think it needs to wait a while. As far a Rigby is concerned, I don't have a problem, but as far as the comment about Clay Aiken playing PP, HEEEEEEEEELL NOOOOOOOO!!!!! He needs a better role than that!

Phantom05

[broadwayguy2]

Posted: 7/22/03 at 3:30pm

My problem is that A.) the show needs to be reworked to play closer to the play. The musical had too much camp and fluff and B.) Rigby just kept bringing it back and bringing it back again and again for those damn limited runs. Why couldn't she have just had one open ended run like any other NORMAL show????

[lensman55]

Posted: 7/22/03 at 7:12pm

>I don't even find Mary Martin convincing when I've watched the >old TV version. I don't know who decided this part should be >played by a female, and why everyone's stuck with it all these >years, but the most ridiculous thing is that females are >always so freaking old. He's the boy who won't grow up, >darnit!!

I didn't buy Mary in the role even when I was a kid watching it on TV... I never saw Cathy do it, but I did see Sandy Dunkin on Broadway twice. I thought she was great!

[lensman55]

Posted: 7/22/03 at 7:24pm

>I think it was just a dumb idea the first time, but since Mary >Martin is so beloved nobody challenged it in the future. Good >for the West End...but has there ever been a major U.S./Bway >production starring a male?

Actually, our local Equity theatre group (Trinity Square Repertory Company) did a version with a male Peter Pan. Of course, they also used Circe Solie (sp?) variation on the flying, everybody was hanging from big thick ropes.

[luluhed]

Posted: 7/22/03 at 9:10pm

Come to think of it, when I was a child, and saw Mary Martin in the role, I thought nothing of it. Now, when I think back to her performance, as talented as she was, it doesn' work for me in retrospect. It probably doesn't matter now, though! I never saw Sandy Duncan in the role, but I vote for a guy next time!