How the actress became an action heroine for “Peter and the Starcatcher”

There are eleven men in the cast and only one woman, but still, Peter and the Starcatcher is a boon for female audiences.

In Rick Elice’s action-adventure play, now at Broadway’s Brooks Atkinson Theatre, we learn the origin story of Peter Pan, Captain Hook, and all the other characters from the familiar classic. As they’re performing, the actors create the entire world, using ropes and sheets to suggest ships and islands and turning their own bodies into hallways and doors. The jumping, posing, and tumbling give the play a uniquely physical magic.

And Celia Keenan-Bolger is jumping with everyone else. She plays Molly, a clever girl who works with her father to keep magical “star stuff” from falling into wicked hands. In the midst of a mission, she meets a group of orphaned boys who have been captured by a cruel ship’s captain, and naturally, being brave, she rescues them. One of the boys is Peter (Adam Chanler-Berat), and as they become friends, they help each other through swordfights, ocean rescues, and the scary moment when you fall in love.

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Why less is more in Dan LeFranc’s hit play

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The less authentic it looks, the more authentic it feels.

That’s not a Zen riddle: It’s what Dan LeFranc learned about his play The Big Meal, now at Playwrights Horizons.

Superficially, the play sounds realistic: An extended family gathers for a series of meals throughout their lives, and between courses, they grapple with birth, death, and marriage.

But there’s magic in the way the story’s told.

Take the couple Sam and Nicole: When we meet them, they’re flirting at a restaurant, and they’re played by twentysomething actors Phoebe Strole and Cameron Scroggins. For a while, the scene feels like a traditional romantic comedy, but then—bang—Nicole jumps to their second date in the middle of a sentence. Time shifts, and suddenly, we’re in a new scene.

Soon, Sam and Nicole are married, and they’re at a restaurant with their kids. Only now, Sam and Nicole are played by thirtysomething actors Jennifer Mudge and David Wilson Barnes.

That’s how it goes for the entire show: As characters age, older actors play them, and younger actors eventually play the children of characters they played in earlier scenes. The conceit suggests we all become our parents and we all leave pieces of ourselves in our children. Life stops momentarily when we die, but then, somehow, the dead get resurrected in later generations.

LeFranc has been refining that vision for several years, and at this point, the play is remarkably lean. Actors barely change costumes, they use only a few props, and the sets and lighting are subtle suggestions, not literal interpretations.

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Meet students, teachers, and teaching artists who are part of this program, sponsored by Theatre Development Fund.

Watch the video:

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Stephen Schwartz in front of his current Broadway shows

A Q&A with the superstar composer on Godspell, Wicked, and more

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Stephen Schwartz is one of the most influential forces in contemporary musical theatre. As a composer and lyricist, he’s created classics shows like “Pippin” and expanded the American songbook with tunes like “Meadowlark” and “Day By Day.”

At the moment, two of Schwartz’s defining works—”Godspell” and “Wicked”—are running next door to each other on Broadway, and he’s collaborating with Aaron Sorkin to create a musical about Houdini. Since Hugh Jackman is attached to play the legendary magician, there’s a good chance Schwartz will be celebrating yet another hit in just a few months.
Last week, Schwartz joined me for lunch in midtown Manhattan. We discussed his lengthy career, his thoughts on his current Broadway shows, and how being a team player doesn’t always mean what you think.

I’m delighted to present the highlights from our conversation.

– Mark Blankenship

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TDF Stages: Godspell, which stages the teachings of Jesus with a rock-pop score, has been produced thousands of times since it premiered Off Broadway in 1971, but until the current revival opened last fall, it hadn’t been on Broadway in over thirty years.

What’s it like to have your first hit back in the spotlight?

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Complex emotion in a Neil Simon revival

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When you hear the name “Neil Simon,” you might think of knee-slappers like The Odd Couple, but recently, several directors have been working to expand his legacy.

David Cromer’s woefully short-lived Broadway revival of Brighton Beach Memoirs found delicate drama inside family comedy, and in her current remount of Lost In Yonkers for The Actors Company Theatre, Jenn Thompson places loneliness and hope next to rat-a-tat laughs.

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