The story of Peter Pan, the boy who refused to grow up, is by now a familiar tale to audiences. J.M. Barrie created the original Peter Pan character for a novel called The Little White Bird, and in 1906, the chapters that were devoted to Peter Pan were published apart as Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens.
Barrie was inspired by the imaginative adventures in the park that he witnessed in the children of Sylvia and Arthur Llewelyn Davies, and based on his experiences with them, Barrie wrote the stage play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Never Grew Up.
In 1998, Alan Knee wrote the play The Man Who Was Peter Pan; Knee later adapted the play for film, titled Finding Neverland. The story focuses on Barrie's platonic relationship with the widowed Sylvia and her four young boys. Based on these productions, an original musical was created, with music and lyrics by Scott Frankel and Michael Korie and book by James Graham. The revised version of the Finding Neverland musical made its world premiere in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 2014, at the American Repertory Theater. From there, it went to Broadway in March of 2015, where it played for 17 months before heading out on a national tour.
You can catch Finding Neverland onstage at Century II Performing Arts Center from December 18th to December 20th, courtesy of the American Theatre Guild's Broadway in Wichita. Please do remember that latecomers will not be allowed to enter the theater until the tour-approved time.
