One weekend into their two-weekend run, Purdue Fort Wayne’s Peter and the Starcatcher taps into the popularity of the beloved Peter Pan tale while bringing a new depth to the story. Beverly Redman, the chair of the Department of Theatre at PFW, was not initially set to direct the show, with the upcoming Little Women musical the show on her plate. But circumstances changed, leaving Redman to figure out how she wanted to approach this production.
“This show was chosen last year, but I was not going to be the one to direct it,” Redman said. “It wasn’t a show I had chosen so I had a hard time wrapping my mind around it. I didn’t feel it was a fully formed production piece since it had been devised by a group of people for Broadway. There’s an openness about the tech so you could do it this way or you could do it that way. Some of it was unexplained.”
In the end – with a mission not only to entertain but to teach young students and artists – Redman worked with her cast and crew to solve those mysteries.
“We started by asking ‘What is the purpose?’ and went from there,” she said. “We found a lot of inventiveness and had to come up with ways to quickly solve those issues. It was fun but challenging, and we had to use all of the theatre. We didn’t have an extended rehearsal period and decided on a quick way to do it. There was no room for trying and creating even though the script invites that.”
In the end, Redman, her cast, and her crew had five weeks of rehearsal time to create the show from the ground up.
“We really came together,” Redman said. “And they absolutely came through. I have never been more impressed with a group of students. They worked hard and were so positive. And I can say as an almost-58-year-old woman that the show is about a youthful time, and I found myself relishing those moments of young adults. It reminded me of my time as a mother when I would have those same feelings.”
To relive those feelings with Peter and the Starcatcher, four performances remain. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings will raise the curtain at 8 p.m. Saturday’s matinee begins at 2 p.m. Visit pfw.edu/tickets for more information.
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