For my 100th post on Rope of Silicon (yes, people, I have made it to 100), I needed something interesting. Would it be a review? A list? A rant? Then, I thought, how about something light, fluffy, and fun? This is why I bring you the trailer for the upcoming NBC musical event “Peter Pan Live!“, which will premiere on December 4th. The trailer, available to view below, features some brief moments of Allison Williams, as the titular boy who won’t grow up, singing and Christopher Walken having some fun as the evil Captain Hook.
The trailer also gives us brief glimpses of Kelli O’Hara (five-time Tony nominee) as Mrs. Darling, Christian Borhle (Tony winner) as Smee, Taylor Louderman as Wendy, and Alanna Saunders as Tiger Lily.
Executive producer Neil Meron, told Entertainment Weekly, that some new songs have been added to this particular production, pulled from the trunks of original composers/lyricists Jule Styne, Betty Comden, and Adolph Green (including songs previously cut from the show)/ Green’s daughter Amanda Green (lyricist for the Hands on a Hardbody musical) was also brought in to write some new lyrics for preexisting melodies.
One of the updated songs is the highly controversial (and racist) “Ugg-a-Wugg“, which has been retitled “True Blood Brothers“. Meron told EW:
Amanda has consulted with our Native American consultant [Jerod Tate], just in terms of replacing ‘Ugg-a-Wugg’ with something more traditionally Native American–which has been approved by them and the rights holders. Now and forever, this will hopefully be the version [in the show]
I know the song will probably still not be 100% on the level, but at least they are making efforts to fix it.
Peter Pan has never been a favorite of mine (even before I realized how racist it got), but this looks like it could be quite a bit of fun. Walken and Williams look like they are having a grand old time, and when the cameras are rolling live for the performance, they will probably be even more on. I hope NBC learned from its mistakes with “The sound of Music Live!“, and this turns out to be much more satisfying a watch.
Again, you can watch the trailer below:
