illuminations A guide to the 2020 plays

Peter and the Starcatcher Illuminations | 1 Prentiss: An orphan, and friend to Boy and Ted. He desperately wants to be a leader, but the more he tries, the more true lead- ership alludes him.

Ted: An orphan, and friend to Boy and Prentiss. Ted is obsessed with food, faint- ing at the mere mention of sticky pudding. He’s ultimately a sweet boy, with some tal- ent as an actor and storyteller.

The British Subjects Lord Leonard Aster: A dedicated minister to Queen Victoria (God save her!) and the devoted father of Molly. He’s wise and stoic, if a bit conservative. As one of only six-and-a-half Starcatchers on the planet, he’s responsible for preventing Starstuff from falling into the wrong hands.

Molly Aster: Lord Aster’s daughter. A confident and smart young woman who yearns to help her father and become a Starcatcher herself. She’s clever and per- ceptive, but also a little inflexible. Driven by a strong moral compass, she has a knack for thinking of just the right thing at just the right moment. She might have a crush on Boy.

Mrs. Bumbrake: Molly’s stern but loving Nanny. British through and through, she also likes to have a bit of fun here and there.

Captain Robert Falcon Scott: Captain of the Wasp. In later years, he will lead an expe- dition to the South Pole and, tragically, freeze to death.

Grempkin: The nasty and vicious school- master of Saint Norbert’s Orphanage for Lost Boys. Uninterested in teaching his pupils or transforming their lives, he whips Peter and the Starcatcher them and keeps them locked in the dark. The Seafarers Bill Slank: The cruel captain of the By Rick Elice Who’s Who Neverland. Driven by greed, Slank is also an Based on the Novel by and orphan, and his desire for more might just Ridley Pearson The Orphans be an attempt to fill a hole in his life. Music by Wayne Barker Boy (Peter): An orphan with no name, Directed by Lavina Jadhwani no friends and a mistrust of adults, Boy Alf: A well-meaning, if gruff, seafarer. dreams of something more: escaping to He doesn’t have much time for orphans, Notes by Paul Adolphsen the stars and finding a home and a fam- but does have a soft spot for very ily. He’s quiet and observant, and ready British nannies. to learn what it means to be a leader. He might have a crush on Molly.

2 | Peter and the Starcatcher Black Stache: The malapropism-dropping, Stache pursues the Neverland, where mercurial menace of the high seas. A bit of Molly has discovered the Starstuff and a showboat, Black Stache might hide some teamed up with Boy to return it to her insecurity (but don’t tell him that) behind father. Can Molly and Boy work together his panache. He can switch on the anger in to find the precious Starstuff before it’s an instant. Black Stache is on the hunt for too late? treasure, but more than that, he seeks a hero to complement his villainy. An Origin Story Smee: The right-hand man to Black Stache, eter and the Starcatcher has a Smee tries (and often fails) to carry out fascinating constellation of origin the bidding of his captain, even if it P points, from a lonely and search- means dressing up as a mermaid and ing writer telling stories to children in playing the ukulele. at the turn of the 20th century, to two American authors The Natives “ping-pong-ing” chapters back and forth Fighting Prawn: The king of the Mollusks. between St. Louis and Miami at the begin- He spent years enslaved in British kitchens, ning of the 21st. and his desire for revenge runs deep. The idea for came from stories Hawking Clam: Fighting Prawn’s son. One that writer J. M. Barrie imagined with day he will rule over Mollusk Island. the five boys who would become his muses—the sons of London socialite Sylvia Teacher: A Scottish salmon who is now a . From these adventure wise mermaid. tales came the wildly popular 1904 play that introduced Western audiences to Peter Pan, headstrong and boastful, mercu- The Story rial and charismatic. James Matthew Barrie—better known as J. M. Barrie, author of Peter Pan.

It is a misty dawn in 1885 at the docks of Nearly a century later, inspired by Barrie’s Portsmouth, England, where two ships original story, humorist Dave Barry and are preparing to depart, both bound for thriller writer Ridley Pearson decided to the faraway isle of Rundoon. Aboard the write a prequel, imagining how the iconic Wasp—the fastest ship in the British characters from Neverland became who fleet—is Lord Leonard Aster, charged by they are. Their first book, Peter and the Queen Victoria (God save her!) to destroy Starcatchers (published in 2004), was a a trunk of valuable Starstuff by throwing huge success and generated an entire it into Rundoon’s Mount Jalapeño, lest it series of popular young-adult novels. fall into the wrong hands. Hoping to keep his only daughter, Molly, safe, Lord Aster In 2007, Disney (who popularized a very leaves her on the other, slower ship—the particular image of Barrie’s Peter Pan) Neverland—in the care of her very British began to explore how Peter and the nanny, Mrs. Bumbrake. Also aboard the Starcatchers might live onstage, telling Neverland are three orphans—Prentiss, Barry and Pearson’s imaginative origin Ted and Boy—bound to become pet story in the form that Barrie himself first food for the snakes of King Zarboff III, used: the theatre. Rundoon’s tyrannical ruler. Just before the two ships set sail, Bill Slank, the When considering these points in Peter Neverland’s conniving captain, swaps the and the Startcatcher’s journey to the stage, trunk full of Starstuff for an identical one storytelling—as act and structure—emerg- filled with sand. es as a guiding thread. Peter Pan began as a tale told to and with children, meant to Out on the open water, the Wasp is over- entertain and engage them. As a fable, it taken by pirates who had stowed aboard was also devised to soothe J. M. Barrie’s disguised as sailors. Their captain, the own uneasiness with the adult world. The fearsome Black Stache, seeks the Queen’s connective and transporting magic of tell- treasure of Starstuff, only to discover that ing a story has always been at the heart of Sketch by costume designer Melissa Torchia. he’s been duped by Slank. Furious, Black Peter Pan. It’s an adventure presented to

Illuminations | 3 intergenerational audiences hungry for Throughout his years at school, and then told a story about how George and Jack’s the pleasure of imagination and the thrill in his life as a promising young writer, baby brother Peter could fly. The story of recognition. The boy who never grew Barrie was uncomfortable with the adult later made it into Barrie’s 1902 novel for up, then, finds a homecoming of sorts in world. Short, small and very shy, Barrie adults, , in which the fantastical world—brought to life by was, as Jackie Wullschläger writes in her Peter Pan first appeared as a 7-day-old an ensemble of storytellers in Peter and book Inventing Wonderland, “a bachelor infant who escapes his family and lives the Starcatcher. by temperament.” And yet, in 1894, Barrie in Kensington Gardens. By playing games married actress Mary Ansell, who had with the Llewelyn Davies boys and encour- J. M. Barrie and the Creation performed in his play Walker, London two aging their imaginations, Barrie created of Peter Pan years before. Barrie was unsuited to mar- Neverland and its inhabitants. These char- “All children, except one, grow up.” A ref- riage, and while he loved children and acters were often drawn directly from life. erence to Peter Pan, this line could also Mary wanted them, the couple only had a The Darling boys were named after the summarize the central ambiguities and large Saint Bernard dog named Porthos. Llewelyn Davies boys (John and Michael). tensions of his creator’s life. A man who The made-up name Wendy came from a was obsessed with childhood and deeply It was Porthos that brought Barrie into friend’s daughter, whose lisp made her nick- fearful of growing up, J. M. Barrie experi- contact with the boys who would inspire name for Barrie—“my friendy”—sound like enced the central trauma of his life at age Peter Pan. Barrie had a habit of taking long “wendy.” The Saint Bernard Nana is mod- 6, when his beloved brother David died walks with the dog in London’s Kensington eled directly on Barrie’s dog Porthos. Barrie suddenly in a skating accident at 13 years Gardens, and there, around 1896, he met may have included some of the tension he old. Barrie’s mother was devastated by 5-year-old George Llewelyn Davies and his felt toward Arthur Llewelyn Davies in the David’s death, and Barrie threw himself younger brother Jack. Barrie soon fixated hotheaded and inept Mr. Darling. And Mrs. into becoming the older son his mother on the boys and later met their mother, Darling, with her “sweet mocking mouth,” would never have, even going so far as to Sylvia, with whom he became entranced. is Barrie’s beloved . dress in his dead brother’s clothes. David’s She was the wife of Arthur Llewelyn sudden death instilled in Barrie a fixation Davies, a wealthy and well-connected Despite many barriers to success, Barrie’s on staying forever a boy and an uneasi- London barrister. Wullschläger writes: “Her play Peter Pan—based on these characters ness with growing up, traits that would sons were living versions of [Barrie’s] ideal created with the Llewelyn Davies boys— contribute to the creation of Peter Pan of boyhood.” opened in London on December 27, 1904, later in his life. and was a triumph. Building on the suc- Barrie quickly became a very close friend cess of the play, Barrie wrote an expanded of the family. It was a complicated rela- version of the story and published it in 1911 tionship. Given the mores of the time, it under the title . was unconventional for a married man with no children of his own to become so Barrie’s Peter Pan—the character, the play attached to another family. And given our and the novel—have been subject to many contemporary perspective, Barrie’s close adaptations. Throughout films and televi- association with the Llewelyn Davies boys sion shows, plays and novels, Barrie’s cre- can be concerning. Addressing this, biog- ation has proven its appeal across genera- rapher Andrew Birkin (who interviewed tions. Barrie himself turned to storytelling the youngest Llewelyn Davies boy) offers and fantasy to live out an idealized life, to that Barrie was “a lover of childhood, but imagine a different world and to escape was not in any sexual sense the paedophile conventional roles that never fit him. That that some claim him to have been.” Writing core impulse—to tell a story, and thus in the New Yorker, Anthony Lane suggests shape the world—might be what brings that Barrie’s parasitic relationship to the people back to Peter Pan and Neverland Llewelyn Davies boys “may have been generation after generation. creepy and pathetic, but it was not a crime.” Barrie became a voyeur of this happy fam- Peter and the Starcatchers ily and its spirited, charming boys, who Like Peter Pan himself, and many children’s embodied the childhood he had so uneasily stories before and after, Peter and the left behind and for which he pined. Starcatchers began with a question from a child. One evening, writer Ridley Pearson From this convoluted relationship was reading Peter Pan aloud to his daugh- K. T. Vogt, seen here in 2017’s Shakespeare in between personal desire and societal ter when she turned to him and asked, Love, portrays Alf, a mermaid, and other roles norms, between unwanted adulthood “how did Peter Pan meet in in this ensemble-driven production. and unattainable childhood, came the the first place?” Pearson thought it was a Photo by Jenny Graham. character of Peter Pan. On one vacation good question, and would make an even with the Llewelyn Davies family, Barrie better book.

4 | Peter and the Starcatcher Committed to writing a “prequel” to tagonist, but Molly is the hero. She is the of words, the transformation of actors, Barrie’s original that would answer his one who in the end gets it done despite and the thrill of imagination.” This was daughter’s question, Pearson went on incredible odds. . . . She is the brave, strong a canny choice on the part of playwright the hunt for a co-author. He found his character who brings Peter up to her level. Rick Elice and directors Roger Rees and partner in Pulitzer Prize–winning humor . . . We wanted a kick-ass girl in there.” Alex Timbers. Their focus on storytelling columnist Dave Barry, his bandmate resonated with Peter Pan’s origins in the from the famously terrible Rockbottom The two writers had only planned on imaginations of the Llewelyn Davies boys, Remainders—a band made up of authors creating a slim volume to capture the ori- aligned with Barry and Pearson’s desire to including , Barbara Kingsolver gins of Peter Pan, but before they knew it, tell a captivating tale for their own chil- and Amy Tan. they had written a nearly 500-page book, dren, and produced a theatrical event that and Disney approached them to publish continues to delight audiences a decade Writing a book, unlike making a piece of more under the “Starcatcher” umbrella. after its premiere. theatre, is a solitary endeavor. Pearson, the The series now includes five books. And author of over 50 suspense and young- Pearson’s daughter has a spectacular Over the course of developmental work- adult novels, had never written collab- answer to her question from all those shops and a first production, the team oratively before. To create Peter and the years ago. behind Peter and the Starcatcher discov- Starcatchers together, Pearson and Barry ered and deepened this foundational focus split up the characters and then took turns on storytelling. The first workshop came writing chapters from these different From this in the summer of 2007 at Williamstown perspectives. This method ensured that Theatre Festival, where, according to the style of the book was true to Pearson convoluted Cerniglia, the main organizational prin- and Barry’s authentic voices. Their focus ciple was “everybody plays everything.” was less on literary devices, or trying to relationship Actors transitioned between different emulate Barrie’s particular style, than on between personal characters and narrated key moments of telling an exciting story that would answer action, establishing a theatrical vocabulary Pearson’s daughter’s original question. desire and that foregrounded the act of storytelling as a structural device and an overarching In addition to imagining adventuresome societal norms, theme. This allowed audiences to clearly and exciting backstories for Peter, Captain see and understand how the story was Hook, and the other inhabit- between unwanted being told even as they were swept up in ants of Neverland, Pearson and Barry its wake. also had some larger goals as adapters. adulthood and First, they wanted to address Barrie’s rac- It was at this workshop that directors ist depiction of the “Indians” who live on unattainable Timbers and Rees also began incorporat- Neverland. In an interview on the website childhood, came ing music (lullabies, sea shanties, vaude- of Powell’s Books, Barry explains that he ville tunes) into the storytelling. After and Pearson wanted to focus on creat- the character of Williamstown, Wayne Barker joined the ing a more “sophisticated, maybe a little creative team. Barker had been, among his scarier, certainly a more competent and Peter Pan. other credits, the accompanist to famed dignified” representation of the island’s drag queen Dame Edna. His knowledge imagined “natives.” Thus came the char- of a wide variety of musical styles and his acters Fighting Prawn and Hawking Clam, Starcatchers Goes to Broadway familiarity with a certain “over-the-top” human inhabitants of Mollusk Island who Peter and the Starcatcher, the adaptation aesthetic played well with Timbers and had been captured and enslaved in British of Barry and Pearson’s book that opened Rees’s imagination-filled staging. Music kitchens. Barry and Pearson use this back- in 2009, was an exciting theatrical expe- became a core component of the storytell- story to level a gentle critique at British rience for many reasons. Chief among ing of the play. Peter and the Starcatcher is colonialism, while also giving dimension them was the ensemble nature of the not a musical in the traditional sense, but to the indigenous Neverlanders and production, which focused on the act of it is a play that uses music: to underscore their suspicion of newcomers arriving storytelling itself to bring the novel to life moments of transformation, to give tex- on their shores. onstage. Using ropes and planks and their ture to the emotion of the characters, and own bodies, a group of 12 actors shifted to help the ensemble create one fantasti- Pearson and Barry were also determined to quickly between characters and created cal world after another. correct the gender imbalance in the story the magical circumstances of the plot. of Peter Pan by creating a central female In the annotated script of the Broadway During a La Jolla Playhouse workshop pro- character who is “strong” and “brave,” production, dramaturg Ken Cerniglia duction, the team cemented the adapta- descriptors mentioned by Barry in the writes that the original goal of the the- tion’s “poor theatre” aesthetic, supported Powell’s Books interview. He elaborates on atrical adaptation was to turn the novel by the choice to source all of the produc- the character of Molly: “Peter is the pro- into “a play that celebrated the sound tion’s scenic elements directly from the

Illuminations | 5 Language as a Prop Barry and Pearson’s simplified focus on story and the analog theatrical technolo- To transport Dave Barry and Ridley gies of Barrie’s time. Pearson’s novel to the stage, Rick Elice did the normal cutting, splicing and In his production history, Cerniglia remem- combining that are required for telling bers, “our biggest criticism from La Jolla a story within the time constraints of was that the character arcs of Molly and live performance. Black Stache were so successful that the titular character was often lost.” In Some changes from the book to the response, Elice made a decisive shift to stage adaptation will be apparent to the character of Peter, making him less of anyone who is a fan of Pearson and the active, confident child he is in Pearson Barry’s original. The first half of their and Barry’s novel. Peter became “a dark, book concerns the convergence and abused, nameless boy” whose journey fate of not two, but three ships. The toward a name and a home became the blustering Captain Pembridge of the backbone of the play. After La Jolla, the Neverland is gone, replaced by his first word “Starcatchers” in the title lost its “s,” mate from the book, Bill Slank. In the a move that helped to focus the play even more on the relationship between Boy novel, Molly and her father, Lord Aster, Playwright Rick Elice. communicate through a porpoise and Molly. named Ammm. In Elice’s adaptation, theatre’s prop storage. “Poor theatre” is a they talk via their amulets in the lan- style of performance and production that While he had to jettison some characters guage of the extinct Dodo bird. comes from Polish theatre director Jerzy and situations from the novel, Elice did Grotowski and his work with actors in the decide to keep its historical setting, placing One of Elice’s particularly hilarious 1960s and ’70s. The aesthetic emphasizes the action of his adaptation in 1885. His changes is making Black Stache—a the connection between the actor and the adaptation acknowledges Britain’s status menacing, if overly dramatic figure audience by removing costumes and sets as an imperialist power, with narrators cri- in the novel—prone to ridiculous and focusing on an unmediated, “stripped- tiquing England’s sense of superiority and malapropisms. This is in keeping with down” acting style. Considering its ante- the people of Mollusk Island testifying to the delight in language that infuses cedents, it is interesting that this theatrical the abuses that British colonialism engen- Elice’s adaptation. In the annotated adaptation of Peter and the Starcatchers dered. The historical context is also felt script of the Broadway production, utilized such an aesthetic, as it echoed most keenly in how gender works in the Elice recounts that, as the play was play. In particular, Molly and the Orphans developing, “The directors told me argue about whether or not women can that language was to be considered a be leaders. To emphasize this thread in prop, so I used as many linguistic tricks the plot, and to show the isolation felt by as I could.” The play is full of allitera- women during Queen Victoria’s reign, the tion, anachronism, narration, song, wildly successful Broadway production wordplay, anagrams and a profusion of featured an ensemble of male-identifying literary, cultural and historical allusions actors playing all the roles, save for Molly, that will delight particularly nerdy who was played by female-identifying audience members. actor Celia Keenan-Bolger.

Elice has fun dropping Shakespeare Peter and the Starcatcher at OSF “Easter eggs” throughout the text, with Many of the regional productions of references to the famous Sonnet 18 Peter and the Starcatcher that followed (“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s the Broadway run also decided to cast day?”), King Lear (Black Stache: “Blow an all-male ensemble. Lavina Jadhwani, you winds! Oh, you winds! I’m still who is directing the play at the Oregon the man!), and Macbeth (“Screw your Shakespeare Festival, is interested in courage, steel your heart!”), as well as exploring how the casting for Peter and a play-within-a-play that feels reminis- the Starcatcher might be more inclusive, cent of the Rude Mechanicals’ produc- inspired by a note from Elice and the tion in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. original creative team that describes the play as “a celebration of ‘all-ness.’” OSF’s Timbers, Rees and Elice were inspired production will include female-identifying at the beginning of their process by performers playing both male and female David Edgar’s large-scale, narration- Sketch by costume designer Melissa Torchia. characters, and will be performed by a

6 | Title more racially diverse company than the filled adaptation of Charles Dickens’s original Broadway production. Further Reading Nicholas Nickleby, which had been a success at the Royal Shakespeare For Jadhwani, this is right in line with what Peter and Wendy, by J. M. Barrie. This is the Company in the 1980s. Elice credits OSF does best: “What we do here, be it novel Barrie published in 1911 following the Dickens as a “spiritual father” of his with Shakespeare or other canonical work, success of his 1904 play Peter Pan. adaptation, and references the author is to take these stories that we think we a few times (“Please, sir—is there a know and say, ‘But what if it looked like Peter and the Starcatcher: The Annotated vegetarian alternative?”). this?’” This sense of curiosity and explo- Script of the Broadway Play, by Rick Elice. ration is perfectly suited to Elice’s lively This beautifully designed commemora- Other literary and cultural figures get adaptation, which plays with audience tive edition includes informative insights shout-outs, including Robert Browning, expectations and delights in the kind of from Rick Elice and other members of the John Bunyan, Herman Melville, George imaginative play that gave rise to the char- original Broadway creative team about the Bernard Shaw and Philip Glass. acter of Peter Pan in the first place. This development process and the script itself. Capping off the many high-brow allu- production will be a celebration not only sions are a whole string of anachro- of inclusion, but of OSF’s excellent and vir- Inventing Wonderland: The Lives and nisms: Ayn Rand, BVDs, “two thumbs tuosic acting company, who will bring this Fantasies of Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, J. M. up!” and more. imagined prequel to life. Barrie, Kenneth Grahame and A. A. Milne, by Jackie Wullschläger. An engaging group “So many people in this play are looking biography of influential British children’s for home,” says Jadhwani. There’s Boy, who book authors. Wullschläger expertly places finds his place in Neverland, Molly, who their lives and their works into fascinating learns what it means to be a leader, and historical context. Black Stache, a villain who finds his hero. It’s personal, too, for Jadhwani. Last at OSF Hook, 1991 film, directed by Stephen as the 2016 Phil Killian Directing Fellow, Spielberg, starring Robin Williams. A Jadhwani sees this production “like a little sequel to Barrie’s Peter and Wendy, the film homecoming.” imagines what happens if Peter Pan did grow up. The symbol of home has always been at the heart of Peter Pan. Barrie searched his The Starcatcher Series: Peter and the whole life for a home and found it in the Starcatchers (2004), Peter and the Shadow magic of telling stories with the Llewelyn Thieves (2006), Peter and the Secret of Davies boys. Barry and Pearson created Rundoon (2007), Peter and the Sword of an origin story for Barrie’s boy who would Mercy (2009), The Bridge to Never Land never grow up, imagining what his “home” (2011), by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson. might be. And Rick Elice found a home for this prequel on the stage, in the form Director Lavina Jadhwani. where Peter Pan first took flight. It’s a fas- i cinating constellation, and OSF’s produc- tion—inclusive and celebratory—will be one more bright spot along the way.

Five actors in this ensemble shot from 2017’s Shakespeare in Love will be reunited in Peter and the Starcatcher: James Ryen, Preston Mead, Brent Hinkley, Michael J. Hume and Cristofer Jean. Photo by Jenny Graham.

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