This holiday season, the Canadian College of Performing Arts (CCPA) is bringing Peter and the Star Catcher to the stage. The play will be directed by CCPA chair of acting Evan Frayne, who says it will take audiences on a fun adventure with all of their favourite characters from the original story.
“Peter and the Star Catcher, it’s based on Dave Barry’s novel Peter and the Starcatchers,” he says. “So, it’s essentially like a backstory or a prequel to Peter Pan, so it gives a backstory for some of the characters from that original story. It’s essentially about a boy who is sort of sold off to some merchants and is stowed away on a ship and we meet all of the characters, or who will become the characters, from the Peter Pan story throughout the play. It’s really interesting, it’s fun, kind of a fascinating adventure play that I think a lot of people will resonate [with] if they know the Peter Pan story.”
Frayne says that some of the themes in this play are about finding your own identity and the definition of community and leadership.
“Some of the themes of Peter and the Star Catcher are really about community,” he says. “Finding community, finding a home, themes about identity and also themes about leadership and who should be leaders, and what are the qualities of a leader.”
In 2012, Frayne saw Peter and the Star Catcher on Broadway, which inspired him when it came time to choose a production for CCPA’s second year students.
“I think the original impulse was actually seeing the production of it, seeing a really outstanding production of the play, and then thinking about what would be a great experience for these actors that are in a training program,” he says. “For a lot of them it’s among the first show that they’ll do so we thought it would be a really good challenge for them. It’s a big ensemble piece—there were 12 actors in the original production, but we have 20 in ours. It’ll be a really fun production for people to watch. Essentially for a lot of the play the whole cast will be on stage. They’ll, you know, create things. It’s essentially story theatre so it’s using your body and simple props to tell the story…it’s [a] very multifaceted, multimedia kind of show.”
One of the challenges of directing a play for students is juggling the rehearsal process, but Frayne believes it’s going well so far regardless.
“Typically in a rehearsal period, we’ll work for three weeks, full-time, you know, six days a week,” he says. “So you can really build up momentum and see the piece come together because you’re with it every day. In this process the students are doing classes eight hours a day… So that’s, I’d say, the biggest challenge is just really getting that sense of momentum and getting everybody feeling like they’re working towards that goal and having that goal in mind as we go to rehearsals.”
The students performing in the play are in their second year of training at CCPA and are hard at work.
“We’re still rehearsing, so we’ll continue rehearsing until we open in December,” says Frayne. “So it’s been very spread out, which is an interesting process… In a way it’s been really good because that gives the actors time to learn some things away from the rehearsal hall. It’s been fun, it’s been a really positive experience. I think having all the actors there for pretty much the whole rehearsal period has been great, lots of people in the room, lots of energy, lots of ideas.”
Peter and the Star Catcher
Various times, Thursday, December 14 to Sunday, December 17
Various prices, Canadian College of Performing Arts
ccpacanada.com