Last year, NBC had an unexpected hit in “The Sound of Music Live!“, which got 18.82 million viewers live. Those are numbers very few shows get anymore. The show was a mess, admittedly. Carrie Underwood was wildly miscast as Maria, but America got a primetime look at Tony winners Laura Benanti, Audra McDonald, and Christian Borle do what they do best, and the three of them made the telecast worth watching. NBC, in an effort to repeat the success of last year, will be airing “Peter Pan Live!” on December 4th, starring Allison Williams (who I think is the best part of Girls) as the boy who won’t grow up and Christopher Walken (who I think is the best part of everything) as his nemesis Captain Hook. The live event was given its first poster today.
This is not the first time a live trip to Neverland will be on NBC, having previously done live performances of it in 1954, 55, and 60, starring Mary Martin and Cyril Ritchard. NBC needs to choose recognizable material, I guess, and this one has proven to have gotten viewers before. I certainly remember watching a VHS copy of the one of the productions as a kid. It was never one of my favorite shows, but I am looking forward to see if NBC learned from their mistakes last year. Christian Borle is returning as Mr. Darling and Captain Hook’s first mate Smee, so that is promising. I also think it is fun that Borle won a Tony for his performance in Peter and the Starcatcher as “Black Stache”, who will become Captain Hook. Just fun theater nerd stuff.
The cast, along with Williams, Walken, and Borle, will include five-time Tony nominee Kelli O’Hara (can we just give her one already?) as Mrs. Darling, Taylor Louderman as Wendy, and Alanna Saunders as Tiger Lily. I hope they tone down the racism in that character because it is pretty crazy.
The new poster is super campy, which I like. I hope they have fun with the show. It is a pretty frivolous show, and upping the camp of it could be interesting. I will certainly be watching live on December 4th. You can see the full poster below.
