By BOB TUROSZ
NORTH READING – Eight days from now the High School Masquers Club will debut Peter Pan, its first production in the new NRHS Daniel Shay Performing Arts Center and it promises to be four performances the likes of which the town has never seen before.
The new performing arts center will provide the Masquers with a state of the art venue for this ambitious production of the classic tale about a boy who never wanted to grow up. Student actors will literally fly across the stage thanks to $10,000 worth of flying apparatus and instruction that will be supplied by ZFX Flying, a Louisville company that’s one of the best in the country. Rehearsals have been going on for weeks, set construction is proceeding at a feverish pace and flying lessons for the students start this week.
Peter Pan opens on Jan. 30, with additional performances on Jan. 31, Feb. 6 and 7. And all is in readiness, faculty advisor Alison Kane predicts, for a debut production that North Reading will remember for years to come.
Peter Pan will feature a large cast, with 38 main performers and 72 total, cast and crew. Montana Robertson plays Peter Pan, Olivia Krol plays adult Wendy, Neva Veutullo is young Wendy and Jason Glenn plays Captain Hook.
The students will rehearse their flying five hours a day, Kane said. All of the people running the flying system will be Masquers alumni who are returning to the school from all over the country. “They are all extended parts of our family who are coming back to celebrate our new show and that is awesome,” Kane added.
Kane has also brought in a friend of hers who helped bring Finding Neverland from the American Repertory Theater to Broadway, to help the students with characterization and to fly. “That’s been a really good experience for them to work with someone new and who has professional experience.”
Additionally, the students will go to see Finding Neverland on Broadway in May and be able to compare their efforts with a professional production.
The Masquers chose Peter Pan for their first big production in the new performing arts center not only to demonstrate the capabilities of the new facility but to perform something accessible for the entire community, Kane said. “Peter Pan shows the love of every aspect of the theater. It’s not only a classic musical, it’s a modern musical, it’s a timeless story and fits with everyone from 2- and 3-year-olds up to 103-year-olds. Everyone can relate to this story at some point. We have this beautiful new place, why not show it off a little bit?”
“So, no holds barred,” Kane says. The Masquers finally have a real orchestra pit and they’ll fill it with 12 musicians for the show, including a string section. Tickets are $15 for adults, $12 for students, $10 for senior citizens and $5 for children 5 and under. This year for the first time, tickets will be for assigned seats. In the future, the Masquers hope to be able to sell tickets online but for this year they’re making good use of the performing arts center’s box office – tickets can be purchased there in person starting Monday, Jan. 26 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day.
Handicapped seating is available at front and back of the theater and there is an elevator to assist handicapped patrons who want to sit in the front. The box office is located outside the theater in the main hallway of the high school known as “Main Street.”
Behind the scenes, the performing arts center has a modern tech room and tech workshops where the students are hard at work designing and building “one of the most fantastic” sets Kane says she has ever seen. “They’ve taken everything from inspiration pictures to simple 3-D designs to architectural design and now they’re putting it on its feet.” All the money to produce Peter Pan, including the flying apparatus and support was raised by the students through fundraising, working carnivals, door-to-door and selling ads for the programs.
It’s been a massive effort and one that required the students to pull out all the stops. The Jan. 31 performance will be at 4 p.m. All other performances will be at 7:30 p.m. Based on availability, tickets will be sold at the box office beginning 90 minutes before each performance. But Masquers productions have a history of selling out so get your tickets early if you want to spend an evening with Wendy, Michael, John and Peter Pan, the boy who never wanted to grow up.