Peter and the Starcatcher

Peter and the Starcatcher
Broadway Logo
Written by	Rick Elice
Characters	Peter Pan Molly Aster Black Stache
Date premiered	February 13, 2009
Place premiered	La Jolla Playhouse
Subject	Peter and the Starcatcher

Peter and the Starcatcher is a play based on the 2004 novel Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson, adapted for the stage by Rick Elice. The play provides a backstory for the characters of Peter Pan, Mrs Darling, Tinker Bell and Hook, and serves as a prequel to J. M. Barrie's Peter and Wendy.^[1] After a premiere in California at the La Jolla Playhouse, the play transferred to Off-Broadway in 2011 and opened on Broadway on April 15, 2012. The show ended its Broadway run on January 20, 2013, and reopened Off-Broadway once again at New World Stages in March 2013, ending in January 2014.

Plot[]

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Act I[]

An ensemble of actors enters a bare stage. After some bickering, they welcome the audience to the world of the play and describe what's in store: flying, dreaming, adventure and growing up. They encourage the audience to use their imaginations to visualize the British Empire. Transported to a bustling port, we meet Lord Leonard Aster; his precious daughter Molly; and her nanny, Mrs. Bumbrake. Two identical trunks are delivered to the port. One contains a precious cargo belonging to the Queen, who has appointed Lord Aster as its custodian to voyage with the trunk aboard The Wasp, the fastest ship afloat, helmed by his old school chum Captain—Robert Falcon Scott—bound for the remote kingdom of Rundoon. The other trunk, a decoy full of sand, will be carried by the old, weather-beaten ship The Neverland, captained by the sinister Bill Slank. While no one is looking, Slank marks the Queen's trunk with a chalk X. At the last moment, he swaps the trunks. Grempkin, the schoolmaster of St. Norbert's Orphanage for Lost Boys, sells Slank three orphan boys - Prentiss, Ted, and a nameless orphan known only as Boy. Grempkin tells the boys they’ll serve as helpers to the King of Rundoon, but Slank indicates a more sinister outcome. After realizing that no one cares enough to say goodbye to the orphans, the Boy proclaims that he hates grownups.

The Neverland: Deck

A gang of malnourished sailors prepares The Neverland for the Rundoon voyage. A squadron of British navy seamen, led by Lieutenant Greggors, arrives to fetch Lord Aster, who is paying Slank to take care of Molly. Molly and Mrs. Bumbrake are traveling aboard The Neverland, which is taking a slower, safer route to Rundoon. As Molly and Lord Aster bid farewell, a crate containing the orphan boys bursts open and The Boy catches Molly's eye. Before he departs, Lord Aster confides the mission's details to Molly, speaking in Dodo, a language known only to dodo birds and some very special humans. Aster places an amulet around his neck and a matching one around Molly's. He warns her never to take it off or let anyone else touch it, and to use it if she is ever in trouble. Molly asks to be part of the mission aboard The Wasp, but Lord Aster promises her an exotic vacation once the mission is complete. Molly says that she is only an apprentice Starcatcher, a word that catches Slank's ear. Aster departs for The Wasp. Alf, a kindly old seafarer, escorts Molly and Mrs. Bumbrake to their cabin in the ship, and The Neverland sets sail.

The Neverland: Molly's Cabin

In their cabin, Mrs. Bumbrake describes to Molly a family she used to work for in Brighton. The cruel master would beat the cook, an island boy who was an artist in the kitchen. On his way to feed the pigs, Alf checks in and flirts with Mrs. Bumbrake. Molly, a lover of all animals, follows Alf out.

The Neverland: Ship's Bowels

Unseen, Molly trails Alf on the long journey to the bilge room. On the way, she discovers sailors gambling, singing hymns, and torturing Mack, the world's most inept sailor.

The Neverland: Bilge Dungeon

As Alf enters the bilge, Molly slips in behind him. The three orphans gather around Alf and his bucket of food. Prentiss, who identifies himself as the group's leader, demands to speak to the Captain, while Ted dives into the food, only to realize he's been fed worms. The Boy asks Alf about their fate but he refuses to answer. Alf leaves and Molly appears, startling the boys. The Boy challenges Prentiss's leadership and captivates Molly. The Boy lashes out, but Molly challenges him, which sparks something new in him. Molly leads Ted and Prentiss to find real food, but the Boy doesn’t follow. The Boy flashes back to St. Norbert's Orphanage for Lost Boys, where Grempkin is lashing him. The Boy imagines having a family. Molly re-enters to fetch the Boy, saving him from his nightmare.

The Wasp: Captain's Cabin

Greggors escorts Lord Aster inside the ship and then reveals that his real name is Smee and the seamen are pirates. Captain Scott is bound and gagged, and the real seamen are in chains below. Smee demands the key to the trunk, but Lord Aster refuses. Just then, the pirate crew begins to tremble in fear. Smee elaborately introduces the most feared pirate captain on the high seas, Black Stache, who enters, then immediately vomits into a bucket. Black Stache, so-called because of his trademark facial hair, is a sometimes poetic but malapropism-prone psychopath who threatens to find and kill Molly unless Aster gives him the key to the trunk. When Aster refuses, he steals the trunk key. The amulet around Lord Aster's neck begins to glow.

The Neverland: Passageway

Molly's matching amulet starts to glow and the boys notice. Molly divulges that her father is on a secret mission for the Queen. Mrs. Bumbrake comes searching for Molly, so she and the boys escape down a corridor and encounter a flying cat in Slank's cabin. Molly knows that the only thing that could make a cat fly is starstuff; she realizes that the Queen's treasure is on the wrong ship. She tries to distract the boys from the starstuff by suggesting a bedtime story. The Boy unexpectedly blurts out his darkest secrets and dreams. Molly entrances the boys with the tale of Sleeping Beauty, and leads them away from Slank's cabin.

The Wasp: Captain's Cabin

Back on The Wasp, Stache opens the trunk only to find sand. Smee deduces that Slank must have swapped the trunks. Stache complains to Lord Aster about his quest to find a great hero to oppose so he can be a great villain, and commands that the ship be turned around. The Wasp pursues The Neverland.

The Neverland: Ship's Bowels

After the boys have been lulled to sleep by Molly's bedtime story, Lord Aster contacts her through the amulet and warns her that pirates have commandeered The Wasp. Lord Aster instructs Molly to bring the Queen's trunk to him once The Wasp catches The Neverland. Aster tells Molly that she is now a part of the mission. The Boy awakens and catches the end of Molly's communication; he insists that she tell him what is going on.

The Neverland: Deck

From the ship's deck, Molly tells the Boy about Starcatchers, a handful of people whose sole mission is to protect starstuff. The Boy insists that Molly prove she is an apprentice Starcatcher, so she puts her hand around her amulet, closes her eyes, and floats a few inches above the deck. Molly explains that a Starcatcher's primary duty to collect starstuff as it falls to earth and dispose of it in the world's hottest active volcano, Mount Jalapeño, which is on Rundoon. The Boy tells Molly that he is going there to help the King, but she bursts his bubble and explains that King Zarboff is actually evil. He would kill for even a thimble of starstuff. As the Boy laments, Slank enters and throws him overboard. The Boy, who cannot swim, starts to drown. Molly dives into the ocean and saves him.

The Neverland & The Wasp

As a hurricane stirs up in the ocean, The Wasp appears on the horizon. Molly drags the Boy back on board and revives him. Slank sees The Wasp and assumes that the British navy must have discovered the trunk swap. He prepares to outrun the other ship, but the Boy takes the wheel and changes course. In the midst of the storm, the wheel flies off the deck and goes spinning out to sea; The Neverland lurches. Below deck, Alf is again flirting with Mrs. Bumbrake, who stops his advances in order to find Molly. On the bow of The Wasp, Stache and Smee are delighted that The Neverland is heading straight toward them. When the two ships meet, the pirates board The Neverland and fight with the sailors. In the bilge, Molly congratulates the Boy for doing something big. She then dashes off to get the trunk from Slank's cabin; the Boy realizes that there are more important things than saving his own neck and runs to help Molly.

On deck, Slank and Stache square off, but just as Stache gets the upper hand, The Neverland splits in two. As Molly and Mrs. Bumbrake struggle to move the trunk, Slank intercepts them. Mrs. Bumbrake throws the ship's cat in Slank's face, and Alf steps in to throw Slank overboard, where he drowns. Molly asks the Boy to stall the pirates while she gets the Queen's trunk to The Wasp, and the Boy sits on the sand trunk to “protect the treasure.” Stache encounters the Boy and tries to lure what he thinks is the Queen's trunk out from under him. Stache offers the Boy a place on his crew and tries out some Piratical names for him. One of them, Pirate Pete, strikes a chord with the Boy and he chooses a name for himself: Peter. Losing patience, Stache knocks Peter off the trunk, opens it, and realizes he's been had. As Peter celebrates his own cleverness, Stache knocks him overboard. Lord Aster calls to Molly and tells her to bring him the trunk; Molly is torn between saving Peter and obeying her father. Knowing that the starstuff will float, she pushes it in the water and tells Peter to float to a nearby island. Alf and Mrs. Bumbrake search for flotsam to make a raft; Ted and Prentiss cling to one another; Stache commands Smee to follow the trunk; Molly dives into the ocean and swims after Peter; Peter rides the trunk toward the island with fish swimming in its golden wake.

Act II[]

A group of Mermaids recount in vaudevillian song their experience of being transformed from regular fish after swimming in the wake of the starstuff.

The Mountain-Top Lookout Point

Atop a mountain on the island, Peter absorbs the freedom of open skies and clean air for the first time in his life. A yellow bird flies around his head, pestering him, before fluttering off. Ted and Prentiss arrive, and Peter enlists them in the mission to get the trunk to the Wasp so they can leave the island. In the distance, Mrs. Bumbrake and Alf paddle toward the shore on a makeshift raft. The boys hide the trunk and go in search of branches.

The Jungle

The boys descend the mountain, and go deeper and deeper into the dark jungle. They are quickly separated and soon realize that they are not alone. Stache and Smee are also creeping about the jungle and Molly, a champion swimmer, has arrived as well.

Mollusk Territory

The island's natives, the Mollusks, capture the boys. The chief, Fighting Prawn, sentences them to death, a fate he reserves for all English trespassers because he was sold into slavery by the English. They are to be sacrificed and fed to Mr. Grin, the island's hungriest crocodile. The boys offer the gift of a bedtime story to the Mollusks, hoping they will fall asleep, allowing the boys to escape. Fighting Prawn accepts the offering, timing them with a kitchen timer he wears as a relic of his slavery as a kitchen boy. The boys perform Sleeping Beauty for the tribe, but because they all fell asleep during Molly's rendition of the story, none of them can really remember how it goes. Molly approaches and watches from behind some trees. At the climax, Molly blurts out that the boys have ruined the story. The Mollusks are amused (especially because Molly's name means "Squid Poop" in their language), but decide that the English invaders must die anyway, and toss them into Mr. Grin's cage.

Mr. Grin's Cage

Trapped inside Mr. Grin's cage, Molly and the boys bicker about what to do. Molly formulates a plan, impulsively kissing Peter as she thinks, to his shock. Peter gets Mr. Grin to open his mouth, and Molly tosses her amulet in. Mr. Grin grows to an enormous size, bursting out of the cage and floating away as Molly and the boys flee. The Mollusks are furious and pursue them.

The Beach

Smee and Stache cannot find the trunk; Stache decides to trick the kids into bringing it to him. Mr. Grin, now several times his normal size, floats toward them, forcing Stache and Smee to take cover in the jungle.

The Jungle's Edge

Peter wants to get off the island, and begins gathering materials for a raft. Molly reminds him of the trunk and the mission. Out in the sea, the boys and Molly notice a flashing light. It is Lord Aster, contacting Molly using Norse Code (a system akin to Morse Code used by ancient Vikings.) Lord Aster instructs Molly to bring the trunk to the beach. The boys and Molly race to the top of the mountain to retrieve the trunk, with the Mollusks in hot pursuit. To give Molly room to reach the mountain, Peter draws the Mollusks' attention to himself.

The Chase And The Fall

Peter runs up the mountain with the Mollusks on his tail. The yellow bird returns and distracts Peter, who falls into a crevice and finds himself in a shimmering lake of golden water, far, far underground. Peter floats, neither drowning nor afraid, and gazes up at a mermaid.

The Underground Grotto

Floating in the grotto's golden water, Peter is greeted by the mermaid who calls herself Teacher. Teacher explains her transformation from fish to mermaid, and describes the power of starstuff to fulfill dreams. Teacher and the island give Peter a second name — Pan. Teacher reveals that Pan has two meanings. The first is fun, frolic, anarchy and mischief - all things a boy likes. Before telling Peter the second meaning of Pan, Teacher reminds Peter about the trunk. Peter climbs out of the grotto and bolts back up to the mountaintop.

The Stormy Night

Molly, Prentiss and Ted arrive atop the mountain and fear Peter's demise. In the distance, they spot Mrs. Bumbrake and Alf sailing toward the island on a makeshift raft, using Mrs. Bumbrake's bloomers as a sail. Molly, Prentiss and Ted drag the trunk toward the beach. A storm begins as night falls, making the journey dark, unpleasant, and frightening. As the others fall asleep, Peter appears and surprises Molly. Peter tries to get in the trunk, but Molly tells him that exposure to so much starstuff is very dangerous. They discuss their impulsive kiss in the cage, and Molly waxes philosophical about avoiding sentimentality until she falls asleep. Peter gingerly tries to open the trunk, but flees when the boys stir.

The Beach

Smee, disguised, tries to lure Molly, Prentiss and Ted with a ukulele song. Stache intervenes and tries to bait the kids with poisoned fruitcake, but Molly identifies him and exposes his plot. Smee reveals two prisoners — Mrs. Bumbrake and Alf! Just then, the Mollusks enter with prisoners of their own — Lord Aster and Captain Scott. Mrs. Bumbrake recognizes Fighting Prawn as her long-lost kitchen boy from Brighton. Fighting Prawn proclaims that Betty Bumbrake was the only English person who was kind to him when he was a kitchen slave. Stache pulls his knife on Fighting Prawn and tries to get the trunk from Molly. Molly must decide between saving Fighting Prawn's life and her duty to the Queen. Suddenly, Stache's words are echoed back to him as Peter continues to distract Stache, and challenges him.

Peter, Ted, Prentiss, then Molly attack Stache, but are one-by-one outmatched. Stache captures Molly with his razor at her throat. Peter realizes the only way to save Molly is by giving Stache the trunk. Although this means he will never leave the island, he acts selflessly and surrenders it. Stache is impressed by Peter's heroic gesture, realizing that this is the worthy opponent he has been looking for, but lifts the lid to find an empty trunk. The water that seeped into the trunk has dissolved the starstuff and it is now diffused into the ocean. In a fit of frustration, he slams the lid down on his right hand, cutting it off. Delirious from the injury, Stache vows to be Peter's foe for all eternity. Hearing Mr. Grin approaching, the Pirates leave to lure the crocodile to join their crew by feeding it Stache's severed hand. Fighting Prawn honors Peter as a true hero and allows the English to leave, and exits with the Mollusks. Mrs. Bumbrake and Alf settle down happily together, and Captain Scott proclaims his intent to explore Antarctica. Lord Aster makes Molly a full-fledged Starcatcher, and promises her a St. Bernard puppy when they return home. With the starstuff gone, their mission has been fulfilled.

Peter mentions his encounter with Teacher to Molly and Lord Aster, and to Molly's horror she and her father realize that Peter cannot leave the island. They realize that Peter, by being dunked in the golden, starstuff-infused waters of the grotto, has been transformed. They share with him the other meaning of Pan: the island and its inhabitants are now his family. Lord Aster captures the yellow bird in the hat, adds the last of the starstuff from his amulet, and turns the bird into a pixie to protect and guide Peter. The fairy flies off, and Ted and Prentiss chase it down the beach. Peter, now the boy who would not grow up, reluctantly bids farewell to the heartbroken Molly with a kiss. As The Wasp sails away, Peter begins to forget what's happened and settles into the eternal present of youth.

Years later, the grown-up Molly watches her daughter Wendy fly off with Peter, taking solace in the fact that Peter now has someone to look after him for a time.

Prentiss, Ted, and the fairy enter; the fairy talks to Peter and suggests that the Lost Boys join him by taking a dip in the waters of the enchanted grotto. As the Lost Boys race down the beach toward the grotto, Peter Pan flies for the first time.

Characters[]

• Boy: A nameless and friendless 13-year-old Orphan, deeply mistrustful of adults and neglected to the point of never having seen the sun. His adventures allow him to find the hero within himself, and to take on a name worthy of the legend he becomes.
• Molly Aster: A 13-year-old apprentice Starcatcher desperate to prove herself to her father. Highly intelligent and physically adept, she remains socially awkward and something of a know-it-all, and her relationship with the Orphan Boys is driven as much by competition as it is by friendship.
• Black Stache: A highly intelligent but malapropism-prone Pirate chief, so called due to the black mustache that is a trademark in his family. In search of a great hero who he can oppose to become a great villain, Stache is given to scenery-chewing and anachronistic jokes, and has a hook in his future. The name "Black Stache" is a reference to the pirate Blackbeard.
• Prentiss: One of the Boy's orphan companions. Pompous and sarcastic, he is intent on proclaiming himself the leader of the gang of Orphans but is too cowardly to really do anything about it, and usually follows Peter and Molly with only nominal protest.
• Ted: One of the Boy's orphan companions, nicknamed "Tubby Ted." Constantly hungry, he is obsessed with food and faints at the mere mention of sticky pudding. He accepts Molly as a mother figure immediately, often referring to her by that title. Once on the Island, he spends most of his time attempting to figure out how to eat a pineapple.
• Smee: Black Stache's faithful first mate. More intelligent than he gives himself credit for (but still not overly bright), Smee is willing to follow his captain in any amount of hare-brained schemes. Somehow, this ends up with him disguising himself as a Mermaid, which is far from a pretty sight.
• Lord Leonard Aster: Molly's father, A Starcatcher on a secret mission for Queen Victoria. He loves his daughter dearly but is perhaps guilty of placing his mission above her safety. Constantly paranoid about the security of top-secret conversation, he has trained Molly to converse in Dodo, Porpoise and Norse code (a Morse code-like system used by ancient Vikings.)
• Fighting Prawn: The fierce chief of the tribe of Mollusk Islanders, who was sold into slavery in England as a boy, where he became a kitchen slave in a fine house. He speaks almost exclusively in Italian cooking terms. The actor in this role also portrays Grempkin, the sadistic schoolmaster of St. Norbert's Orphanage for Lost Boys, Sanchez, one of Black Stache's crew, and Mack, the world's most incompetent Sailor.
• Mrs. Bumbrake: Molly's faithful Nanny, a prim and proper Englishwoman prone to alliteration. In the tradition of the Pantomime dame, the role is written to be portrayed by a male actor, who also plays Teacher a wise and mysterious mermaid.
• Alf: A salty and flatulent sailor on the Neverland, who falls deeply and instantly in love with Mrs. Bumbrake. He is somewhat coarse and has no time for children, but good-natured.
• Bill Slank: The nasty, greedy and cruel captain of the Neverland. It is Slank's greed for the Queen's secret treasure sets the entire plot in motion. The actor in the role also portrays Hawking Clam, Fighting Prawn's son.
• Captain Robert Falcon Scott: Captain of the Wasp, and Lord Astor's old friend from their schooldays. Based loosely on the real Robert Falcon Scott.

The ensemble cast also portrays narrators, mermaids, pirates, sailors, islanders and various other creatures, locations, and people throughout the show.

Productions[]

The play premiered at the La Jolla Playhouse in California, running from February 13 to March 8, 2009. It was co-directed by playwright Rick Elice's partner Roger Rees and Alex Timbers.^[2] An instrumental score was written by Wayne Barker.^[3] The cast starred Adam Green as Peter Pan.^[4]

The play, now titled Peter and the Starcatcher, opened Off-Broadway at New York Theatre Workshop, beginning performances on February 18, 2011.^[5] The show received several extensions, eventually closing on April 24, 2011.^[6][7] The new cast starred Celia Keenan-Bolger as Molly, Christian Borle as Black Stache, and Adam Chanler-Berat as Peter.^[8] From mid-March through April 1, Borle shared the role of Black Stache with Steve Rosen.^[9] Adam Chanler-Berat shared the role of Peter with Jason Ralph.^[10]

The show then opened on Broadway at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre, with previews starting on March 28, 2012 and officially opening on April 15, 2012.^[11][12] The original Broadway cast included Christian Borle (Black Stache), Celia Keenan-Bolger (Molly), Adam Chanler-Berat (Boy), Teddy Bergman (Fighting Prawn), Arnie Burton (Mrs. Bumbrake), Matt D’Amico (Slank), Kevin Del Aguila (Smee), Carson Elrod (Prentiss), Greg Hildreth (Alf), Rick Holmes (Lord Aster), Isaiah Johnson (Captain Scott) and David Rossmer (Ted).^[13] Art for the Broadway production, which draws upon the whimsical, imaginative content in the show, was crafted by Vermont-based woodworker John W. Long, and featured in The New York Times.^[14] On July 2, 2012, Matthew Saldivar replaced Borle in the role of Black Stache.^[15] The Broadway production of Peter and the Starcatcher closed on January 20, 2013 after 18 previews and 319 regular performances.^[16][17]

The show re-opened Off-Broadway at New World Stages beginning on March 18, 2013.^[18] It closed on January 12, 2014.^[19]

A national tour launched in Denver on August 15, 2013^[20] and concluded in Pittsburgh on May 25, 2014. A second national tour launched in Toledo on February 5, 2015 and concluded in Burlington, VT on April 14, 2015.^[20]

The play is currently available for licensing from Music Theatre International.^[21]

Original casts[]

Critical response[]

Although the show garnered positive-to-mixed reviews by most critics,^[26] it received a rave review from The New York Times, with Ben Brantley writing: "When the H.M.S. Neverland goes down in Peter and the Starcatcher, it's the most enthralling shipwreck since James Cameron sent the Titanic to her watery grave in the late 1990s . . . The cast is, with no exceptions, wonderful . . . It's a performance that you might classify as over the top, but only in the sense that the entire production is. With grown-up theatrical savvy and a child's wonder at what it can achieve, Peter and the Starcatcher floats right through the ceiling of the physical limits imposed by a three-dimensional stage. While there's not a body harness in sight, like those used to hoist the title characters of Mary Poppins and Spider-Man, this show never stops flying."^[27]

Awards and nominations[]

Original Off-Broadway production[]

Original Broadway production[]

References[]

External links[]

• Official website
• Peter and the Starcatcher at the Internet Broadway Database
• Off-Broadway Database listing