“I have a place where dreams are born,
And time is never planned.
It’s not on any chart,
You must find it with your heart.
Never Never Land.”
The classic story of Peter Pan will be presented at Playhouse Square’s Connor Palace Theatre for eight performances only from April 9 – 13. {Complete show and ticket info}
The journey to the magical land of Never Never Land is set to captivate audiences of all ages! Follow the spirited Wendy Darling and her brothers as they soar with Peter Pan, the boy who never grows up, to a land of mischievous Lost Boys, enchanting mermaids, and the fearsome Captain Hook. With the help of the ever-faithful Tinker Bell, Peter leads the charge against Hook and his bumbling band of pirates in a battle for freedom, friendship, and the joy of eternal youth.
The first musical adaptation of J.M. Barrie’s play debuted on Broadway on October 20, 1954 and now is STILL performing on a national tour, in a new adaption by playwright Larissa FastHorse and directed by Emmy Award winner Lonny Price.
This previewer writer fondly remembers watching the 1980s television production (pirated from the television broadcast onto VHS by my law-breaking parents) that starred gymnast Cathy Rigby in the titular role. The lack of special effects (the strings that made Rigby ‘fly’ were VERY visible in the televised program) didn’t deter from the story or the music.
Checking in with CleveRock via phone, Aubrie-Mei Rubel, who recently took over the role of Wendy Darling in the current touring production, filled us in about the updated play and her journey to her new role!
As someone fresh to the show, Rubel was asked if there is anything that stands out to make this iteration of the show different.
“Definitely! I think the writing… This is a new imagined Peter Pan, so I think when I first saw it, what really jumped out to me was the differences with the characters Tiger Lily, and Wendy, and the whole indigenous ensemble,” she said. “I mean, we’ve really updated Peter Pan in certain regards that the show was a little dated, and so we’ve certainly changed some things that needed to be changed.”
A proud graduate of Wagner College with an impressive resume of acting credits, Rubel is no stranger to Peter Pan.
“I actually played the part of Peter back in fifth grade, so this is a nice full-circle moment,” she revealed.
After hearing about the opening for the role of Wendy, she auditioned, doing callbacks over ZOOM, before accepting the role and leaving her role in a production of Magic School Bus.
Asked what attracted her to the show and, specifically, the character Wendy:
“Wendy was very much a character that was asleep during a song that was about her and never had a song, and she didn’t really participate in the fights, and she was kind of just there. Not that I didn’t love the original Wendy, as every little girl did, but this Wendy has a lot more autonomy to who she is,” Rubel said. “She knows exactly what she wants to do in life. She wants to become a surgeon. She is very strong in her own, and you still have her in love with Peter Pan. You still have her really taken by the magic and the classic story, but then on top of that, you have her able to hold her own. She participates in the fights. She has a song. She’s right there with Peter and Tiger Lily to fight off Captain Hook. I really love how strong Wendy is in this version and how she can be in love with Peter Pan. But he’s just a man. He’s just a boy, really. So she can still have her fun by herself.”
Having starred in Peter Pan as a child, the play helped spark Rubel’s love for musical theater! She knew early on that she wanted to be a performer as a career.
“Peter Pan was definitely part of the start of it all,” she confirmed. “I was raised by a single mom who adopted me from China, and she spent a lot of time in her childhood growing up in New York. She had a love for theater, so she brought me to a bunch of shows when I was a kid, and I think it kind of just blossomed from there. I grew up watching shows, and then I was like, ‘You know what? I want to be on the stage.’ And she was like, ‘Oh, really?’ She was surprised because that just had never crossed her mind. She loves theater, but she says she would never do musical theater, and it makes sense, but it kind of sparked in me a real way to want to be on the stage. And then I started to pursue community theater and children’s theater in the community, and then I would do my school shows, and then eventually, I was like, ‘You know what? I want to spend my college doing this as well.’ It kind of all blossomed from there.”
As noted, the show has been performed countless times since 1954! I can’t count how many performers have occupied the role of Wendy, but rest assured, it’s a large number. Performers often pride themselves on interpreting a character in their own unique way. Rubel was asked about her take on her character, and how she interprets Wendy.
“I feel like every actor that approaches this role is going to look at it differently. I, of course, replaced someone who had been on the tour since the beginning and is such a talented actress in her own right. It was a joy to watch her, but I kind of had to scrap everything I really thought I knew about Wendy, and I kind of just approached her as a new character in my mind, and I really tried to bring myself to that role, who I was as a little kid,” she explained. “I was a very strong-willed little kid as well, so just try to bring myself to it as much as I could, and then just the text has it all right there. The book by Larissa FastHorse; so much of it is already just written in. I just kind of looked at that, and I was like, ‘Alright, I got it!’ I can take what’s on the page, take all my experiences, and mold this character into who I think she is. And the beautiful thing about theater, or at least I think, is everyone’s going to be a little bit different playing a character. I’ve loved the different reiterations of Wendy that I’ve been able to see across the years and across all of the actresses that play her.”
As a theater patron, this interviewer is guilty of overlooking important elements of most productions of shows I attend. It’s too easy to get lost in the stories and the music that other key pieces of the show, such as the lighting, wardrobe, and sound design, often get lost in the shuffle for me. I asked Aubrie-Mei for help on what I should be on the lookout for in this show.
“Well, I would say the scenery is very hard to miss, but it’s just so gorgeous,” she said. “I think you’ll definitely be able to tell. I really love, personally, the transition from the bedroom and the flying to Neverland. It’s gorgeous. The sets are absolutely gorgeous, and we have a screen behind everything that projects different backgrounds, and it’s all put together. It’s really beautiful. So I would say it’s hard to miss, but definitely pay attention to the sets!”
Of course, no production of Peter Pan would be complete without the performers “flying” above the stage. As for this iteration?
“We see Peter, Wendy, John, and Michael, all fly! It’s very exciting,” Rubel said. “I would say the audiences always are highly attuned at that moment. They’re all either gasping in the audience or have their eyes glued to the stage.”
As one of the flying characters and a newcomer to performing in the show, she was asked about her experience in the flying scenes.
“It’s always a thrill to be able to do it,” she said. “I will say, in the beginning, I was a little bit like, ‘Oh, this is a new sensation.’ But now that I’m used to it, it’s really fun. Occasionally, there’ll be a day where I’m like, ‘Oh, that seems a little different than normal.’ Most of the time, it’s smooth sailing, and I have a blast! The flying is hard to beat, but I really love the connection with Peter. I mean, the whole bedroom scene, in the beginning, is kind of just Peter and I going back and forth, and I just think that that is always really fun to do with Kruz [Maldonado], who’s our Peter. It’s always fun to just banter with him.”
Finally, Aubrie-Mei was asked to put on her best salesperson hat and give us her best pitch on why Cleveland theater fans should make the trip to Playhouse Square to see Peter Pan while it is in town.
“I would say that this production is just so magical, and it really brings out the child in all of us,” she said. “We can find a little bit of that magic and joy and optimism that we have as children to have adventures, and just really take in the whole world and have fun and enjoy being a child sometimes. And that sometimes, in this world that’s very fast-paced, we try to grow up too fast, and sometimes we do need to just lay back and enjoy what the world has to offer.”
SOLD!
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