Arsht Center: Peter and the Starcatcher (reviews)

Peter and the Starcatcher made its regional debut at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts on October 9, 2014, a co-production by the Arsht Center and the University of Miami Department of Theatre Arts.

Winner of five Tony Awards, Rick Elice’s PETER AND THE STARCATCHER is the innovative and imaginative play with music based on the best-selling novel by Miami native Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson. In this high-flying adventure, twelve actors play more than 100 unforgettable characters – plus most of the scenery and furniture – in an exhilarating journey to answer the century-old question: How did Peter Pan become The Boy Who Never Grew Up? This epic origin story proves that one’s own imagination is the most captivating place in the world!

Henry Fonte directed a cast that included Nicholas Richbert, Tom Wahl, Abigail Berkowitz, Thomas Jansen, Joshua Jacobson, Timothy Bell, Timothy Boehm-Manion, Robert Fritz, Alejandro Gonzales Del Pino, Liam Merkle, Matt Sawalski, and Michael Mancini.

 

Howard Cohen wrote for The Miami Herald:

So much is going on in this fizzy prequel to J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan prequel, Peter and Wendy, audience alertness is a must to soak up all the puns, plot and pratfalls. But if you’re not so inclined and miss a joke, or a plot point, Rick Ellice, who co-wrote the touring juggernaut Jersey Boys and wrote the Starcatcher script, keeps throwing things at the audience. Something will stick.

Twelve talented actors, most of them University of Miami theater students who work with seasoned Equity pros Nicholas Richberg and Tom Wahl, perform not only their main roles but dozens of others, including roles as scenery and props. Rolling waves in this seafaring tale? Give cast members a rope and have them simulate a roiling sea upon which the action unfurls…  It’s theater-on-the-cheap writ large, and it looks fantastic.

Happily, the UM students, in the fourth coproduction between the school’s Department of Theater Arts and the Arsht’s Theater Up Close series, erase the lines between the pros and themselves.

Everyone is on equal footing — Richberg, as the flamboyant Freddie Mercury-like Black Stache/future Captain Hook, and Wahl, as Lord Aster, father of the young heroine Molly, along with Timothy Boehm-Manion, Joshua Jacobson and Timothy Bell as the orphans.

Sophomore Thomas Jansen, in the pantomime mame role as Mrs. Bumbrake… makes the most of his amusingly alliteration-heavy dialog. Jansen deftly spews bon mots like, “Betty’s blowing her bloomin’ breakfast,” as the storm-tossed sea — or thunderously flatulent love interest seaman Alf (Michael Mancini) — gets Bumbrake’s bloomers in a bunch.

Molly, played by Abigail Berkowitz, a UM musical theater major senior, is particularly well-pitched as the 13-year-old girl who blends precocious proto-feminist ideals with her strange new feelings…

Elice’s script, set in 1885, takes jabs at pop culture… Black Stache’s malapropisms —“As elusive as the melody at a Philip Glass opera” — amuse, but director Henry Fonte allows scenes to play on far too long. Black Stache’s mishap in the second act overplays its joke by at least five beats.

Likable when it should be lovable, the silly Starcatcher’s family-friendly take on never-ending childhood would benefit from a good trim and focus.

Roger Martin reviewed for Miami ArtZine:

Probably the funniest thing I've seen on stage the past twenty years is Nicholas Richberg as Captain Black Stache, (get it?) the pirate, with his treasure chest. A little accident befalls him and his seemingly endless stream of OMG's takes funny to a level in the heavens. Richberg has the lead in "Peter and the Starcatcher" now playing at Miami's Arsht Center, and lead he does, brilliantly.

The show is a joint production of the Adrienne Arsht Center and the University of Miami Theatre Arts Department so we have student actors working with two professional Equity members, Richberg and Tom Wahl. Students they may be, but the kids hang step for step with the pros.

Fluidly directed by the UM's Henry Fonte with unique music by Wayne Barker. Set design by Yoshinori Tanokura with sound by Matt Corey, lights by Eric Haugen and costumes by Ellis Tillman. The musical director/conductor/pianist is NDavid (no typo) Williams and the percussionist is Mark Schubert. The prop design (including the sailing ships) is by Puppet Network and Monica Soderman.

A well-deserved standing ovation at the end for Peter and the Starcatcher.

 

The regional premier of Peter and the Starcatcher plays at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts through October 26, 2014