Welcome to Ridgebury’s own, Peter Pan Jr! We are excited to have you with us tonight!
Our Peter Pan Jr production would not have reached this point without the help of the many who have done so much to make this a truly special experience for our 61 cast and 16 crew members. Our newly minted “Ridgebury Players” saw its highest number of participants since restarting the RES program three years ago, with an astounding 77 students!
One of the exciting changes to the program this year was the addition of Mr. Ryan Loucks, our first Musical Director. Thank you, Ryan, for all you bring to our team! And with more students came the need for more help, so we could not be more thankful for the help of our parent community.
A special thank you to our co-producers, Stacey Wanicur and Pam Foppiano who spent countless hours each week, on top of full-time jobs and family commitments, to make sure this show stayed on track and for bringing it across the finish line. We would not be here without your passion, commitment and partnership.
Behind the scenes, parent volunteer Jason West, masterminded Broadway-quality, professional set designs that will be used for years to come. On top of planning and obtaining required supplies, Jason orchestrated set-building parties whenever other parent volunteers were available and would take over Pam and Cory Foppiano’s garage for building despite freezing temperatures and winter storms. “Bring your own tools” became a common instruction for weeknight and weekend stage crew construction. The stage crew parents truly went the extra mile, creating "set kits" that our stage crew students assembled to bring to life what is now our pirate ship and Lost Boys' cave. A heartfelt thank you to Cory Foppiano and Anthony Cioppa for their remarkable contributions to our set builds. As well as Melgin Suhul, Giuseppe Fontana and Staci Day for sharing their time and skills.
We were fortunate to re-recruit our two choreographers from last year, parents Kayln Bard and Sarah Lorenzini – who spent hours attending rehearsals, coming straight from work, to get our performers dancing into Neverland. We are grateful to Tom Rubeo for the third year in a row of lending technical expertise to our show. Our costume team, Saasha Hogan and Amy Greenan coordinated the incredible costumes you’ll see tonight. Thanks to Pam Foppiano, Debora and Craig Schneider and Sarah Rosen for tag-teaming the cast and crew photos - we encourage you to check them out in our ‘Hall of Fame”, outside the gym. We’d also like to thank Jonathan Koerner for helping out anywhere and everywhere necessary, be it set construction, stage managing, audition volunteering, or grabbing a random dresser disposed of on the street to become a stage prop. He's the ultimate team player.
