Peter and the Starcatcher
| Peter and the Starcatcher | |
|---|---|
Broadway Logo
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| Written by | Rick Elice |
| Characters |
Peter Pan Molly Aster Black Stache |
| Date premiered | February 13, 2009 |
| Place premiered | La Jolla Playhouse |
| Subject | Peter and the Starcatcher |
Peter and the Starcatcher is a play based on the 2006 novel of a similar name by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson, adapted for the stage by Rick Elice. The play provides a backstory for the character Peter Pan, and serves as a prequel to J. M. Barrie's Peter and Wendy. After a premiere in California at the La Jolla Playhouse, the play transferred to Off-Broadway in 2011 and opened on Broadway on April 15, 2012. The show ended its Broadway run on January 20, 2013, and reopened Off-Broadway once again at New World Stages in March 2013, ending in January 2014.
An ensemble of actors enters a bare stage and addresses the audience. With a bit of bickering, they welcome us to the world of the play and tell us what’s in store: flying, dreaming, adventure and growing up. The ensemble invites us to use our imaginations to create the British Empire. With the snap of an actor’s fingers, we are transported to a bustling port. There we meet Lord Leonard Aster, his precocious daughter Molly, and her nanny, Mrs. Bumbrake. Two identical trunks are delivered to the port. One of them contains a precious cargo belonging to the Queen, who has appointed Lord Aster as its custodian. He’ll voyage with the trunk aboard the Wasp, the fastest ship afloat, helmed by his old school chum Captain Robert Falcon Scott, bound for the remote kingdom of Rundoon. The other trunk is a decoy full of sand and will be carried by the old and weather-beaten ship The Neverland, captained by the sinister Bill Slank. Amidst the bustle of the port, while no one is looking, Slank marks the Queen’s trunk—the one that is supposed to go on the Wasp—with a chalk X. Then, at the last moment, he swaps the trunks so that the Queen’s cargo is loaded aboard the Neverland and the identical sand-filled trunk is hoisted onto the Wasp. Grempkin, the schoolmaster of St. Norbert’s Orphanage for Lost Boys, sells three orphan boys to Slank. Grempkin tells the boys they’ll serve as helpers to the King of Rundoon, but Slank indicates a more sinister outcome for the lads. After realizing that there is no one who cares enough to say goodbye to the orphans, one of the boys proclaims that he hates grownups.
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