Never grow up: OH’s Standing O Theater Company presents Peter and the Starcatcher

Last week, OH’s Standing O Theater Company performed Peter and the Starcatcher by Rick Elice, this year’s fall play. 

The play tells the story of Peter Pan’s upbringing, who was originally a poor orphan boy when he and his friends got shipped off from Victorian England. It’s an eye-catching and humor filled adventure, and the people seem to love it.

 “I really do like the story of Peter and the Starcatcher. It’s really interesting to see how everything came to be,” said OH junior cast member Ava Burkhardt. “It makes you think deeper into the plot. Personally, I think it’s a really cute show!” 

As the plot of the play continues, it deals with a mysterious trunk in the captain’s cabin, which contains precious and otherworldly cargo. At sea, the boys are discovered by a precocious young girl named Molly, a starcatcher in training who realizes that it must never fall into the wrong hands. The play has become a thrilling story with dangers ahead.

“When I read the script, I just loved it and so I knew I wanted to do it at some point,” said Director and OH English and acting teacher Katie Conant. “I finally felt like we had the right kids to do it.” 

If readers were there, they’d be able to tell just by hearing the applause the love that people had for this show.

The actors in the play developed favorite parts of the performance as they practiced scenes together, helping one another prior to the performances this past weekend.

“My favorite scene is the prologue,” said Burkhardt. “I just really think it was such a strong opening for the play and was fun to do overall.”

The prologue, which introduces the theme of childhood ending, revisits the concept in Peter Pan that he does not want to grow up.

“I think my best scene was Act two, scene three, the story scene,” Burkhardt continued. “Overall, [I] enjoyed [the] scene so much, I was able to project that through my acting.” 

“My favorite scene was the tug o’ war scene,” said OH sophomore and makeup artist Layla Lester. “It was really funny.”

One of the interesting facets about plays is the concept of actually talking to imaginary characters who are brought to life on stage. Burkhardt noted that she would like to talk to Bill Slank, a vicious captain in the play.

“If I could give character advice, I would talk to… Slank, [and] I would tell him although his childhood was bad, he doesn’t need to focus on giving children a bad childhood,” said Burkhardt.

Behind the scenes, something that can trip actors up are issues during production, which the crew and director reported did not occur often during this weekend’s production

“Tech wise? … There weren’t a lot of issues because this year,” Conant said. “We did a much more simplified set,” lending itself to fewer tech issues.  

Although the people working on tech might have been lucky enough to play it safe, the actors were slightly less fortunate.

Lester said, “I personally didn’t have any problems, but the cast had a hard time with the microphones, they kept cutting out [during the performances].” This issue was definitely clear during the play, though it didn’t happen enough to ruin any cutscenes.

Overall, despite very minor issues, it was a successful play and quite beloved, with classic characters and humorous scenes, a favorite all around.

The Standing O Theater Company will hold a winter play and the spring musical, both of which have already been decided. As for the titles, audiences will have to wait.

“I won’t tell you what it is, but yes, I already have plans,” said Conant.