Based on the Miramax motion picture by David Magee and the play The Man Who Was Peter Pan by Allan Knee, Finding Neverland follows the relationship between playwright J. M. Barrie and the family that inspired Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, one of the most beloved stories of all time.
Final Broadway performance August 21.
Bombastic and exhausting, the show confuses childishness with an affinity for the child inside...good luck to it, if only this family-friendly musical...didn't work so strenuously for its meager ounce or two of charm...the show does have a heart-stopping death scene that's both moving and visually spectacular in its bewitching stagecraft and its elegant knitting together of imagery and theme. But the two hours-plus leading up to that moment, more often than not, are a chore...On the plus side, the expected patchwork signs of a Frankenstein's monster are not apparent. The show is fairly much of a piece, even if there's scant cohesion to the new score by Take That frontman Gary Barlow and Brit songwriter Eliot Kennedy, which weaves cloying platitudes into numbers that run from generic pop to bad theatrical pastiche...At the core of the show are sensitive, naturalistic performances from Morrison and Kelly, two accomplished musical-theater actors who sketch their characters' mutual yearnings and sorrows in delicate strokes, at times finding sincerity even in the most hackneyed lyrics...there's nonetheless no convincing argument here that a Finding Neverland musical was ever an artistically valid idea.
Finding Neverland purports to be historical: the true tale of how Barrie, inspired by his dealings with the family of Sylvia Llewelyn Davies, created the boy who wouldn't grow up. It also purports to be a singing-dancing family entertainment. It winds up being neither...What's accurate -- perhaps the only thing -- is that Barrie acknowledged the Davies brood as his muses for Peter Pan...On this slender foundation Finding Neverland...builds an enormous superstructure of trite psychology...Finding Neverland demonstrates about as much insight into creativity borne of loss as a Facebook memorial candle. Even if everything in it were profound and true, it would still be a mess, suffering as it does from confusion (or willfulness) about what makes a musical a musical. In good ones, songs are not decorations applied interchangeably to the exterior of a story, like gift-wrap. They are the gift. Here, they seem to be recycled from a different package entirely...More attention has been lavished on the show's tricks than its logic.
2015 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
2016 | US Tour |
First US National Tour US Tour |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2015 | BroadwayWorld Awards | Best Leading Actor in a Musical | Matthew Morrison |
2015 | BroadwayWorld Awards | Best Lighting Design | Kenneth Posner |
2015 | BroadwayWorld Awards | Best Orchestrations | Simon Hale |
2015 | BroadwayWorld Awards | Best Scenic Design | Scott Pask |
2015 | BroadwayWorld Awards | Best Score | Gary Barlow |
2015 | BroadwayWorld Awards | Best Sound Design of a Musical | Jonathan Deans |
2015 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Actor in a Musical | Matthew Morrison |
2015 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical | Carolee Carmello |
2015 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Performance Award | Kelsey Grammer |
2015 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Performance Award | Matthew Morrison |
2015 | Drama League Awards | Outstanding Production of a Broadway or Off-Broadway Musical | Finding Neverland |
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