The baby Kal-El is sent to Earth in a small spaceship shortly before Krypton was destroyed in a natural cataclysm. A young Bruce Wayne swears vengeance against criminals after witnessing the murder of his parents Thomas and Martha as a child. Peter Parker, a poor sickly orphan, is bitten by a radioactive spider. A small water beetle dives to the bottomof the vast sea and comes up with some soft mud, which began to grow and spread on every side until it became the island which we call the earth. All of these are origin stories, although the last which is a Cherokee story of creation and perhaps not as familiar, which explain how things came to be.
Though many people may know that JM Barrie was the author of the original Peter Pan story which appeared in the collection The Little White Bird in a chapter entitled "Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens", many don't know the other part. In 1897, Barrie met and befriended the Llewelyn Davies family and he soon became a favourite with the five boys: George, Jack, Peter, Michael and Nico. It was the Llewelyn Davies boys who provided the inspiration for Peter Pan. He created an amalgamation of them which provided Peter's personality.
Peter Pan is an integral part of our collective culture, so much so that we have a psychology term named after this character - one that some who know me might ascribe to myself. We've had many famous Peter Pans through the years, from Bobby Driscoll who voiced the original Disney film to Mary Martin, Sandy Duncan, Mia Farrow, Robin Williams and so many more. Yet throughout each of these iterations we never received the origin story of how an orphan boy became Peter Pan, a dubious pirate became Captain Hook, a yellow bird became Tinker Bell or how the island came to be named Neverland - until now.
When me children were small, my wife and I would often read to them. We went through so many of the "classics" - Black Beauty, Mary Poppins, Winnie the Pooh and many of the Peter Pan novels. While reading them to my children, one that I cam across was Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry and Ridly Pearson. As I quickly discerned it was not quite a book to share with my little ones, I ended up reading it on my own and falling in love with the brave and mysterious Molly as she befriends a nameless orphan Boy and they both discover how Starstuff will make you what you want to be.
This play, based on that novel, shows us how a nameless kid becomes the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up. The way Starcatcher vibes off of J.M. Barrie’s original Peter Pan play and novel is quite similar to the principles behind the rebuilding we've been doing here as a program since our return from the pandemic - working as a community to challenge each other to be what we can become. But the structure and style of this play does more than provide a vehicle for a Peter Pan prequel; it’s also about imagination and community – the Starstuff that permeates what the Syosset Theatre Arts Program has been stiving to do for twenty-seven years. Starcatcher playwright, Rick Elice, writes the following in the Production Handbook that goes out to the companies who produce this play:
We wanted to make sure the play would reflect what all of us love most about the theatre – a sense of being a part of something bigger than yourself. Community. We begin with a mob of actors…a community waiting to happen, and we end it with those same people, back with a purpose – to lift Peter up in flight. And we know it’s the beginning of something.
It’s that collective strength and community purpose – our community here – that I hope you’ll remember. It’s what this play is about, but it’s also what theatre is for – why we love and need it so. Since 2007, Peter and the Starcatcher has traveled across the country, to Broadway and beyond finally landing here to dwell among us for a few hours. And its magic has traveled intact – the result of years of collaboration, ingenuity, family, and love. However you do it, make sure you do it for one another, for family, for community, for the home that you have collectively created. Trust me, that’s the secret to staying - or at least feeling - young forever.
