Open Forum

Considering Peter Pan for the musical next year - aside from the flying, reading the script it seems like a complex show set wise. Anyone done it and have any advice?

Thanks,

Jeff

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Jeffrey Davis
Plainsboro NJ
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I just completed the show, and I'm surprised not to have acquired  any gray hairs in the process. That said, there are a lot of very specific, and elaborate scenes, that do have to be tailored to meet the needs of the fly system, which we actually had to do without. I did the Stiles and Drewe version, which I think is a superior version for many reasons. The best part of this version is that many events/scenes happen within a given setting, so scenes aren't constantly changing. With imagination and ingenuity, you'll figure out how to make it work withings your concept and construct. 

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Hugh Fletcher
Performing Arts Coordinator
IS 229 Dr. Roland Patterson Middle School
Roosevelt NY

Original Message:
Sent: 06-20-2016 13:10
From: Jeffrey Davis
Subject: Peter Pan

Considering Peter Pan for the musical next year - aside from the flying, reading the script it seems like a complex show set wise. Anyone done it and have any advice?

Thanks,

Jeff

------------------------------
Jeffrey Davis
Plainsboro NJ
------------------------------

Original Message------

Considering Peter Pan for the musical next year - aside from the flying, reading the script it seems like a complex show set wise. Anyone done it and have any advice?

Thanks,

Jeff

------------------------------
Jeffrey Davis
Plainsboro NJ
------------------------------

I did Peter Pan three years ago and you are right that there are some challenges to be faced with the set.  But, nothing is insurmountable.  If you are working with Foy for the flying, they have some good suggestions for the set on their website and in the documents they send out with their contracts.

The challenge in the Act I is getting the nursery off seamlessly for the arial ballet.  We wound up with a bit of a compromise here - the set began to pull away (it broke up into six units) as Peter and the children flew, but we wound up having to close the curtain to get it all of the way off.  There is music built into the score for this, however, and we were able to have the curtain close and immediately re-open to reveal the star drop and flying actors.  It actually worked really well.  You can see from the photo below that we incorporated space between the walls as a part of the design.  That gave us additional options in getting the flying lines hooked up to the actors in addition to the floor length curtain that Peter hides behind to get hooked and unhooked.  It was also useful for having the crew get in there to grab and move the units quickly.  One thing I'd definitely suggest is having all the furniture (beds, dog house, window seat, attached to the walls so that they all move together and you don't have to have extra crew running about moving individual pieces of furniture. Also, the scrim panels (white framed portions of the walls) are important because they allow for the flying crew to have full vision to the actors at all times.  Our beds were like murphy beds, which helped with space backstage.  They folded up and attached to the walls.  We didn't do that in the first act shift - but just pulled the walls to get them off and then flipped the beds up during the first intermission while Neverland was being set.

My other suggestion is to build everything two-sided.  The back of the door into the nursery was the door on the ship for the dousing of the lantern bit.   You can see, in the Neverland photo below, the back of the nursery (this was from dress rehearsal and we re-spiked that unit and added black duvotene flaps that came down to hide the blue and white of the nursery the next day).

Having two-sided units was particularly helpful in Act III for the shift from the Pirate ship back into the nursery.  I will admit that the pirate ship was not as "pretty" or as effective a set as the nursery, but it served and we added posts with rope along each side to demarcate the "deck".  The door on the ship (for the cockadoodle doo bit) was the backside of the door from the nursery.  We made tattered curtains out of old scrim for the windows (which were the reverse side of the Act I scrim panels) and used tension curtain rods which could be popped  rods in and out easily during the scene shift.

We had a great time with the show - hope you will too!!!

------------------------------
Susan Speidel
Chairman of the Performing Arts Department
Morristown-Beard School
NJ

Original Message:
Sent: 06-20-2016 13:10
From: Jeffrey Davis
Subject: Peter Pan

Considering Peter Pan for the musical next year - aside from the flying, reading the script it seems like a complex show set wise. Anyone done it and have any advice?

Thanks,

Jeff

------------------------------
Jeffrey Davis
Plainsboro NJ
------------------------------

Hi,

  We did this in 2007 with our middle school. We used the 1954 Broadway musical version (then Samuel French; now, MTI).  ZFX was hired for the flying (about $6,000.00; similar price for 2016; believe it or not). They had just flown Cathy Rigby; very easy to work with, patient, nice.

   Sets: crucial is the nursery: this is where you will hook up the flying cables with a barking Nana to distract the audience. You have to have a way that Wendy, Michael, and John can be hooked up on stage. We had a (red) back curtain, which you can see in the picture. The kids would go upstage during the barking pretending to hide and would be hooked up in the back through slits in the curtain and in their costumes (which hid the harness).

   Peter flew in through the window seat; our actor was crouched behind the seat already preset and hooked before curtain. Peter has two cables so he can fly across and up and down.

   The other sets: The Neverland, Marooner's Rock, and the Jolly Roger are really all you need. Hopefully, our pictures will be helpful.

   Remember: Time is never planned and second star to the right and straight on 'til morning!

------------------------------
Thomas Cole
Bay City MI

Original Message:
Sent: 06-20-2016 13:10
From: Jeffrey Davis
Subject: Peter Pan

Considering Peter Pan for the musical next year - aside from the flying, reading the script it seems like a complex show set wise. Anyone done it and have any advice?

Thanks,

Jeff

------------------------------
Jeffrey Davis
Plainsboro NJ
------------------------------

I am actually planning this show right now.  We are doing the British version. We are going to use Flying by Foy.  They were really helpful in the set design for the nursery - sent us recommendations, and they were really helpful when I called and asked some questions.  Their customer service was the primary reason (other than cost) that I went with them.  Very personable.  

I really appreciate all of your insights as I am preparing to direct this fall.  Thank you! Thank you!! Thank you!!! 

------------------------------
Mike Hancey
Musical Theatre, Drama, Theatre Guild, & Theater Manager
Laramie High School
Laramie, WY

Original Message:
Sent: 06-20-2016 13:10
From: Jeffrey Davis
Subject: Peter Pan

Considering Peter Pan for the musical next year - aside from the flying, reading the script it seems like a complex show set wise. Anyone done it and have any advice?

Thanks,

Jeff

------------------------------
Jeffrey Davis
Plainsboro NJ
------------------------------

Hi Jeffrey,

I just closed the musical Peter Pan (the 1954 version) in early June. It is a complex show with many moving pieces. The set design needs to be coordinated with the flying, and your rehearsal schedule needs to accommodate those extra fly rehearsals (18 add'l hours in our case). 

I have directed over a hundred musicals and this show had the draw of a Beauty and the Beast/42nd Street.

Attaching a couple of photos-the nursery and Neverland. Feel free to contact me if you have any specific questions about the show.

------------------------------
Krista Carson Elhai
Theatre Director
Claremont HS
An International Baccalaureate World School
Claremont CA

Original Message:
Sent: 06-20-2016 13:10
From: Jeffrey Davis
Subject: Peter Pan

Considering Peter Pan for the musical next year - aside from the flying, reading the script it seems like a complex show set wise. Anyone done it and have any advice?

Thanks,

Jeff

------------------------------
Jeffrey Davis
Plainsboro NJ
------------------------------

Thank you everyone for the responses, advice, and especially pictures! One more question - how did you handle the racist portrayal of the Indians? My set designer brought that up, and sent me some articles. Did anyone have any push-back or offended audiences?

Thanks.

Jeff

------------------------------
Jeffrey Davis
Plainsboro NJ

Original Message:
Sent: 06-24-2016 17:15
From: Krista Carson Elhai
Subject: Peter Pan

Hi Jeffrey,

I just closed the musical Peter Pan (the 1954 version) in early June. It is a complex show with many moving pieces. The set design needs to be coordinated with the flying, and your rehearsal schedule needs to accommodate those extra fly rehearsals (18 add'l hours in our case). 

I have directed over a hundred musicals and this show had the draw of a Beauty and the Beast/42nd Street.

Attaching a couple of photos-the nursery and Neverland. Feel free to contact me if you have any specific questions about the show.

------------------------------
Krista Carson Elhai
Theatre Director
Claremont HS
An International Baccalaureate World School
Claremont CA

I discussed how to handle the issue of the "Indians"  in advance with my administration and with our production team, in the wake of stories about some schools that have had problems come up regarding this issue.  We recreated the original Jerome Robbins choreography, and very intentionally made a few adjustments there, but in the end, the only real changes we made were to replace the word "redskins" with "Tiger Lily's Warriors" or just "warriors" in a few lines, and to list the performers that way in the program as well.   In hindsight, I think we also benefited from the fact that we wound up with an extremely diverse group of students in those roles, but that was not in our minds at the time.  We just cast the best dancers we had and that's how it worked out.

------------------------------
Susan Speidel
Chairman of the Performing Arts Department
Morristown-Beard School
NJ

Original Message:
Sent: 06-28-2016 10:46
From: Jeffrey Davis
Subject: Peter Pan

Thank you everyone for the responses, advice, and especially pictures! One more question - how did you handle the racist portrayal of the Indians? My set designer brought that up, and sent me some articles. Did anyone have any push-back or offended audiences?

Thanks.

Jeff

------------------------------
Jeffrey Davis
Plainsboro NJ

The portrayal of Tiger Lily and her Braves was never an issue with us (Holy Family Middle School: 2007). We were true to the 1954 Broadway musical show material. (I prepared myself for "teachable" moments just in case.) Remember, the musical is a child's fantasy with iconic songs. Peter is stuck on twelve; we are watching his "perceptions" play out in The Neverland. We didn't cut or alter any of the lyrics. This is a classic musical! (We did have two linguists from NYC help us with the fairy language---Qenyan---which our Tinker Bell---who is now a professional dancer touring with Selena Gomez---spoke.) You know your community; do what you think is best. Common sense will prevail.

------------------------------
Thomas Cole
Bay City MI

Original Message:
Sent: 06-28-2016 10:46
From: Jeffrey Davis
Subject: Peter Pan

Thank you everyone for the responses, advice, and especially pictures! One more question - how did you handle the racist portrayal of the Indians? My set designer brought that up, and sent me some articles. Did anyone have any push-back or offended audiences?

Thanks.

Jeff

------------------------------
Jeffrey Davis
Plainsboro NJ

We are calling them Neverland Natives and are creating their own mythology, costumes, and movement. Fortunately with the script we are using we are able to take some creative license. I read a lot of articles and did some soul searching about this very thing before approaching my production team about this very thing. 

------------------------------
Mike Hancey
Musical Theatre, Drama, Theatre Guild, & Theater Manager
Laramie High School
Laramie, WY

Original Message:
Sent: 06-28-2016 10:46
From: Jeffrey Davis
Subject: Peter Pan

Thank you everyone for the responses, advice, and especially pictures! One more question - how did you handle the racist portrayal of the Indians? My set designer brought that up, and sent me some articles. Did anyone have any push-back or offended audiences?

Thanks.

Jeff

------------------------------
Jeffrey Davis
Plainsboro NJ

Hi,

There are many benefits to living in a very liberal college town when it comes to producing challenging works of theatre at the HS level. While we can put most anything on our stage, we do have community members who can get very upset-and become very vocal-at the depiction of characters such as the Indians in Peter Pan. 

My musical director and I wrote the following for our program. As a result we didn't receive a single complaint (with audiences over 3,000), and did hear from people who told us this program note helped them understand our choices.

Feel free to edit and use as needed.

             Peter Pan first comes on the literary scene as early as 1902 and has since been adapted into many literary and stage versions. The world was a very different place over a hundred years ago and so we must keep in mind that societal ideals have obviously changed and "norms" in 1902 are no longer common place. Peter Pan is a "period piece;" a piece of art, theatre, or music, that is extracted from a certain era to give us a picture of society and life at that time and thus to modify a period piece would, in a way, be a bit like modifying history. Turn of the century Europe was fascinated with the romanticism of the "American Wild West" and so "Indians" were common in the literature of the time including Peter Pan. The directors have chosen to adhere to the original script in referring to Tiger Lily and her peers as "Indians," despite its known inaccuracy, because, first, we are under contractual agreement not to alter the script; second, it is only through the accurate portrayal of history that we can see how far we have advanced as a society and how much further we still need to go. It is impossible to learn from history if we rewrite the narrative. This topic was addressed with the cast early in the creative process so that open, honest, and mature conversations could be had during rehearsals.    

------------------------------
Krista Carson Elhai
Theatre Director
Claremont HS
An International Baccalaureate World School
Claremont CA

Original Message:
Sent: 06-29-2016 10:04
From: Michael Hancey
Subject: Peter Pan

We are calling them Neverland Natives and are creating their own mythology, costumes, and movement. Fortunately with the script we are using we are able to take some creative license. I read a lot of articles and did some soul searching about this very thing before approaching my production team about this very thing. 

------------------------------
Mike Hancey
Musical Theatre, Drama, Theatre Guild, & Theater Manager
Laramie High School
Laramie, WY

Original Message:
Sent: 06-28-2016 10:46
From: Jeffrey Davis
Subject: Peter Pan

Thank you everyone for the responses, advice, and especially pictures! One more question - how did you handle the racist portrayal of the Indians? My set designer brought that up, and sent me some articles. Did anyone have any push-back or offended audiences?

Thanks.

Jeff

------------------------------
Jeffrey Davis
Plainsboro NJ

Krista

I applaud you for your words and approach.  Peter Pan is not the only show that  currently has sensitive material. I have taken the approach, as you did, that it is an opportunity to educate my students to thoughts from another era and also my audience as we address it in the program or in an opening "welcome" to our audience.   For all of us on this blog, our role is  to entertain, provoke thought,  and to educate. 

------------------------------
Valerie Scott
Drama Teacher/Director
Perimeter School
Johns Creek, Ga

Original Message:
Sent: 07-01-2016 23:51
From: Krista Carson Elhai
Subject: Peter Pan

Hi,

There are many benefits to living in a very liberal college town when it comes to producing challenging works of theatre at the HS level. While we can put most anything on our stage, we do have community members who can get very upset-and become very vocal-at the depiction of characters such as the Indians in Peter Pan. 

My musical director and I wrote the following for our program. As a result we didn't receive a single complaint (with audiences over 3,000), and did hear from people who told us this program note helped them understand our choices.

Feel free to edit and use as needed.

             Peter Pan first comes on the literary scene as early as 1902 and has since been adapted into many literary and stage versions. The world was a very different place over a hundred years ago and so we must keep in mind that societal ideals have obviously changed and "norms" in 1902 are no longer common place. Peter Pan is a "period piece;" a piece of art, theatre, or music, that is extracted from a certain era to give us a picture of society and life at that time and thus to modify a period piece would, in a way, be a bit like modifying history. Turn of the century Europe was fascinated with the romanticism of the "American Wild West" and so "Indians" were common in the literature of the time including Peter Pan. The directors have chosen to adhere to the original script in referring to Tiger Lily and her peers as "Indians," despite its known inaccuracy, because, first, we are under contractual agreement not to alter the script; second, it is only through the accurate portrayal of history that we can see how far we have advanced as a society and how much further we still need to go. It is impossible to learn from history if we rewrite the narrative. This topic was addressed with the cast early in the creative process so that open, honest, and mature conversations could be had during rehearsals.    

------------------------------
Krista Carson Elhai
Theatre Director
Claremont HS
An International Baccalaureate World School
Claremont CA

Original Message:
Sent: 06-29-2016 10:04
From: Michael Hancey
Subject: Peter Pan

We are calling them Neverland Natives and are creating their own mythology, costumes, and movement. Fortunately with the script we are using we are able to take some creative license. I read a lot of articles and did some soul searching about this very thing before approaching my production team about this very thing. 

------------------------------
Mike Hancey
Musical Theatre, Drama, Theatre Guild, & Theater Manager
Laramie High School
Laramie, WY

Original Message:
Sent: 06-28-2016 10:46
From: Jeffrey Davis
Subject: Peter Pan

Thank you everyone for the responses, advice, and especially pictures! One more question - how did you handle the racist portrayal of the Indians? My set designer brought that up, and sent me some articles. Did anyone have any push-back or offended audiences?

Thanks.

Jeff

------------------------------
Jeffrey Davis
Plainsboro NJ