Peter Pan

Peter Pan is a musical based on J. M. Barrie's 1904 play Peter Pan and his 1911 novelization of it, Peter and Wendy. The music is mostly by Moose Charlap, with additional music by Jule Styne, and most of the lyrics were written by Carolyn Leigh, with additional lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green. The original 1954 Broadway production, starring Mary Martin as Peter and Cyril Ritchard as Captain Hook, earned Tony Awards for both stars. It was followed by NBC telecasts of it in 1955, 1956, and 1960 with the same stars, plus several rebroadcasts of the 1960 telecast. In 2014, the musical was broadcast on NBC featuring several new numbers, and starring Allison Williams and Christopher Walken. The show has enjoyed several revivals onstage. Background and original 1954 production Several productions of Peter Pan were staged early in the 20th century, starting in London in 1904, starring Nina Boucicault as Peter and on Broadway in 1905, starring Maude Adams. In a nod to the original play, and the pantomime tradition it derives from, the title role of Peter Pan in the musical has usually been played by a woman, including Mary Martin, Sandy Duncan and Cathy Rigby, among others. Producer Edwin Lester, founder and director of the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera, acquired the American rights to adapt Peter Pan as a play with music for actress Mary Martin. The show was not successful in its pre-Broadway West Coast tour, so director Jerome Robbins hired lyricists Comden and Green and composer Jule Styne to add more songs, including "Never Never Land", "Distant Melody" and several other numbers, turning the show into a full-scale musical. The musical, instead of using Barrie's original ending, in which Peter simply let Wendy and the other children return home, includes an additional scene that Barrie had written later and titled An Afterthought (later included by Barrie in his 1911 novelization Peter and Wendy). In this ending, Peter returns after many years to take Wendy back to Never Never Land for spring cleaning. He finds that he has been away so long that Wendy is now an adult, married woman with a daughter. Despondent at first, he is delighted when Wendy's daughter Jane offers to be his new mother, and instead takes her with him.