Peter Pan

Lyric Theatre

through August 30, 2015

If you’ve been alive for a few years, you know the story by J. M. Barrie about a girl who flies off to Neverland with Peter Pan. Barrie was truly a great story teller and had a special thing with kids. He adopted two children whose parents had died and in 1929 he donated all the royalties from this timeless book to a Children’s Hospital in London which endures to this day.

This Broadway quality production by the Atlanta Lyric Theatre is one that any kid from 5 to 95 will thoroughly enjoy. With great costumes and sets, choreography by Ricardo Aponte and spot-on music direction by BJ Brown, the cast of 34 very talented and determined actors bring off this production in a very engaging manner.

Leslie Bellair stars as the high-flying Peter Pan who really enjoys life as he has it, and doesn’t really want to grow up. I could kind of buy into that idea. Alan Kilpatrick who is the Associate Artistic Director for the Lyric just loves being on stage himself; and in this one he is the father of the 3 kids in the Darling household as well as the infamous Captain Hook. He plays off as if Jack Benny were doing Hook. Candler Budd is his more-or-less right hand man, Smee.

Remington Bogdanovich is a very athletic young woman who delights the audience as the family pet, Nana, as well as that scary old croc chasing after Hook. And she is also on of the Indians. The lovely Tiger Lily is played by Natalie Rhae Goodwin. The three children in the Darling home are Wendy (Devon Hales), John (Evan Bauer) and Michael (Joseph Masson) and their mother is Deborah Stipe.

The one number that we all recall is I Won’t Grow Up and we kind of want to sing along with the cast on that one. But, you will just love when Peter and some of the others fly, and when the Pirates and Indians get into it. It’s a sweet story and well presented under direction by Jeff McKerley. No expletives and certainly a perfect first stage play to bring a youngster to enjoy.

For performance times and tickets just visit them at AtlantaLyric.com But don’t miss out, this one is a real winner. . . .