For Peter Pan on Her 70th Birthday
- Written by Sarah Ruhl
- Directed by Les Waters
Playwrights Horizons: Stage Kiss, Dead Man’s Cell Phone. Other plays: How to Transcend a Happy Marriage; The Oldest Boy; In the Next Room, or the vibrator play; The Clean House; Orlando; Late: a cowboy song; Dear Elizabeth. She is a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist and a Tony Award nominee. Her plays have been produced on and Off- Broadway, regionally and internationally, translated into over 12 languages. MFA: Brown University, where she studied with Paula Vogel. Awards: Steinberg Distinguished Playwright, Susan Smith Blackburn, Whiting, Lilly, PEN, MacArthur “genius” Award. In print: 100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write (Faber and Faber). She teaches at the Yale School of Drama and lives in Brooklyn with her family.
(as of 8/09/17)
Les Waters is a Tony nominated and multi Obie Award winning director. Previous PH shows include The Christians and The Thin Place. Most recent NY credits are Dana H (Broadway), Grief Camp (Atlantic Theatre), and the revival of Eurydice (Signature). His work has been seen on Broadway, Off Broadway and many regional theaters.
Photo by Sarah Ruhl.
New York premiere
Playing Peter Pan at her hometown children’s theater is one of Ann’s fondest, most formative memories. Now, 50 years later, Neverland calls again, casting her and her siblings back to this faraway dreamscape where the refusal to grow up confronts the inevitability of growing old. In her highly anticipated return to Playwrights, Sarah Ruhl conjures a tender, yearning tale that flies in the face of time, in the search for a second youth.
Featuring
Kathleen Chalfant
AnnDavid Chandler
JimRon Crawford
The FatherLisa Emery
WendyDaniel Jenkins
JohnKeith Reddin
MichaelMacy
A dogPlaywrights Horizons: Cowboy Pictures, Jealousy, Mississippi Moonshine, Born Yesterday, Dead Man’s Cell Phone. Broadway: Angels in America (Tony nom.), Racing Demon. Other Off-Broadway: Wit (Drama Desk, Obie, Outer Critics, Lucille Lortel Awards, MCC); Henry V (Callaway Award, The Public); Red Dog Howls, Far Away (NYTW); Talking Heads, Stories Left to Tell (Minetta Lane); Savannah Bay (CSC). Film: Isn’t it Delicious, Five Corners, Duplicity. TV: “The Affair,” “House of Cards,” “The Guardian.”
Playwrights Horizons: To Peter Pan on her 70th Birthday, Doris to Darlene, Black Sea Follies. Broadway: Death of a Salesman, Lost in Yonkers, American Clock. Off-Broadway: Underneath the Lintel, Slavs!, The Swan, Cellini, Private Jokes and Public Places, Phaedra, Watbanaland, The Peninsula. Regional: Berkeley Rep, Williamstown, Long Wharf, Yale Rep, Guthrie Theater, McCarter, Actors Theatre of Louisville, etc. Film: The Grey Zone, The Undeserved, Hide and Seek. TV: “Death of a Salesman,” “Seinfeld,” “Third Rock from the Sun,” “Law & Order.”
Playwrights Horizons debut. Broadway: The Grapes of Wrath. Off-Broadway: White Woman Street (Irish Rep). Regional: Valley Song, The Night of the Iguana, Travels with Mark Twain (Dorset); Of Mice and Men, Ragtime, To Kill a Mockingbird (Weston); Outside Mullingar (New Harmony). Film: Arthur and the Invisibles (1, 2, and 3). TV: “All My Children,” “Spin City,” “The Jack and Triumph Show.” Thanks to wonderful wife Sydney for 60 years! roncrawfordart.com
Playwrights: Marvin’s Room, The Monogamist, Marjorie Prime, For Peter Pan on her 70th birthday. Broadway: Six Degrees of Separation, Casa Valentina, The Women, Jackie, Burn This, others. Other Off-Broadway: A Funny Thing Happened… (MCC), A Kind of Alaska (Atlantic), Iron (MTC), and more. Recipient: Obie Award. Nominee: Lortel, Drama Desk. Film: Admissions, The Night Listener, Unfaithful. TV: “Louie,” “Damages,” Law & Orders,” “Jessica Jones” (Netflix). Currently on “Ozark” (Netflix).
(Updated 8/20/18)
Playwrights Horizons: Stage Kiss. Broadway: Oslo, Billy Elliot, Mary Poppins, Wrong Mountain, Big (Drama Desk nom.), Angels in America, Big River (2003/1985 Tony, Drama Desk noms.). Other Off-Broadway: Kid Victory, Oslo, Travels with My Aunt, Paris Commune, Benefactors, Love Child (co-written with Robert Stanton). Film: For Robert Altman: O.C. and Stiggs, Tanner ’88, The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, Also Joshua, Cradle Will Rock, Glory, In Country, Five Corners. TV: “Bull,” “Elementary,” “Veep,” “Orange Is the New Black.”
Playwrights Horizons: Baby with the Bathwater. Other credits include Sarah Ruhl’s Passion Play and her adaptation of Chekhov’s The Three Sisters, as well as productions at MTC, LCT, Roundabout, Vineyard, and many regional theaters.
Playwrights Horizons debut. Macy was adopted from Rocky Spot Rescue of Oklahoma City, OK in December 2009 by trainer Bill Berloni. Theater: Annie beginning in 2010 and just finished three years on the national tour. TV: "The National Dog Show," sharing spots with John O'Hurley. This marks her New York theatrical debut.
Creative Team
David Zinn
Scenic DesignerKristopher Castle
Costume DesignerMatt Frey
Lighting DesignerCharles Coes
Sound Design/Original MusicBray Poor
Sound Design/Original MusicRyan Bourque
Fight and Fly DirectorWilliam Berloni
Animal TrainerZFX Flying Effects
Flying EffectsAmanda Spooner
Production Stage ManagerPlaywrights Horizons: Hir, The Flick (Drama Desk nomination, also Barrow Street and National Theater, UK), Circle Mirror Transformation, Kin, The Big Meal, Completeness, Placebo. Broadway: A Doll’s House Part 2 (costumes, Tony nom.), Amelie; Present Laughter; The Humans (Tony Award); Fun Home (Tony nomination); The Last Ship, In the Next Room (Tony nomination), Xanadu. Off-Broadway: Hamlet, How to Transcend a Happy Marriage, 10 out of 12.
Playwrights Horizons debut. Regional: For Peter Pan on her 70th birthday (Berkeley Rep); Macbeth, Wellesley Girl, Luna Gale, At the Vanishing Point, A Christmas Carol, Death Tax, Edge of Our Bodies, The Veri**on Play, True West (Actors Theatre of Louisville); Signature Theatre; Studio Theatre; Barrington Stage Company; Catholic University.
Playwrights Horizons: The Profane, Rancho Viejo, A Life, Placebo, This, Grand Concourse, The Call, Go Back to Where You Are, She Stoops to Comedy. Other Off-Broadway: Everybody (Signature), All the Ways... (MCC), War (LCT3), Gloria (Vineyard), The Way We Get By (Second Stage), Buzzer (The Public), An Octoroon (Soho Rep., TFANA), Generations (Soho Rep.). Regional: For Peter Pan on her 70th birthday (Humana Festival 2016, Berkeley Rep).
Playwrights Horizons debut. Off-Broadway: Robber Bridegroom (Roundabout), Servant of Two Masters (TFANA), the event of a thread (Park Avenue Armory), Regional: Baltimore Center Stage, Yale Rep, Seattle Rep, Berkeley Rep, The Old Globe, The Guthrie, Shakespeare Theatre Company, ArtsEmerson, Wilma Theatre, Two River Theater, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Ford’s Theatre, Dallas Theater Center, the Huntington, South Coast Rep. Teaches at Yale School of Drama.
Playwrights Horizons: Maple and Vine, Completeness, The Flick (Drama Desk nom.). Broadway: The Glass Menagerie; The Real Thing; The American Plan; In the Next Room, or the vibrator play. His sound design and music have been heard in many Off-Broadway and regional theaters. Recent work: The Antiopodes (Signature); Julius Caesar, Hamlet (NYSF). Obie Awards for Annie Baker's John, and Sustained Excellence in Sound Design.
Playwrights Horizons debut. He’s acted in and choreographed the violence for The Glory of the World at BAM’s Harvey Theater and Actors Theatre of Louisville. Other Off-Broadway: Underground Railroad Game (Ars Nova), Twelfth Night (The Public). Regional: Macbeth, Recent Alien Abductions (Actors Theatre of Louisville); Lookingglass Theatre Company; Victory Gardens Theater; Steppenwolf; The Hypocrites. 2015 Joseph Jefferson Award for Fight Design, All Our Tragic.
Playwrights Horizons: Rancho Viejo. Broadway: Annie (all revivals), The Crucible, Living on Love, The Audience, Bullets Over Broadway, Lady Day…, A Christmas Story, Legally Blonde, Camelot, Frankenstein, The First, Alice in Wonderland, Oliver!, Anything Goes, Nick & Nora, La Bête, The Wiz, The Wizard of Oz, Dinner at Eight, Chitty Chitty…, The Woman in White, Awake and Sing, The Lieutenant of Inishmore. Awards: 2011 Tony Honoree, 2014 Outer Critics Circle, 2017 Drama League Award.
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Playwrights Horizons debut. Broadway: Indecent. Off-Broadway: The Wolves (Playwrights Realm), Everybody (Signature), 10 Out of 12 (Soho Rep.), The Glory of the World (BAM), An Octoroon (Soho Rep./TFANA). Regional: A.R.T., Yale Rep, La Jolla Playhouse, Westport. TV: “The Academy Awards.” Assistant Adjunct Professor of Stage Management at Rider University, Programming Director of Tandem at Transport Group Theatre Company, mother to a toddler named Jack.
Special thanks to the Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater for its generous support of this production.
A sweet spot for Sarah Ruhl. Pairing philosophical daring and surreal tenderness.
Another role for the legendary Kathleen Chalfant to inhabit with gusto and intelligence.