Starcatchers

Newsletter – April 26, 2024

I mentioned in an earlier newsletter that I’ve been directing a play called Peter and the Starcatcher, which I recommend highly if you ever have a chance to see it. High schools, colleges, and local theatres have been mounting some very entertaining and creative productions in the last few years. Ours included, if I do say so myself.

If you’re not familiar with the premise, it’s a prequel to Peter Pan where we learn the origins of certain characters, and how their fates became intertwined. The pirate Black Stache is a particularly gregarious comic character who, along with his sidekick Smee, plots to steal the queen’s treasure that will make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. He doesn’t know that the treasure is, in fact, starstuff, a magical substance that gives powers to those who come in contact with it.

I don’t want to give any spoilers other than to say the ending has a very well-crafted wrap-up that answers all your questions about the Peter Pan story we all know and love. The play makes use of narration and story-telling techniques to draw in the audience and encourage them to use their imagination to fill out the picture.

In preparation for directing this play I read the novel Peter and the Starcatchers, which I also recommend. It’s a middle grade adventure like my book, MAMLA*, written by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson. Yes, the same humorist Dave Barry who had a nationally syndicated column from 1983 to 2005. And Ridley Pearson who had a successful series called the Kingdom Keepers, among others. Together they weave a good yarn! 

The play version adds a little bit of music through a handful of well-placed songs and simplifies the plot effectively, like paring three sailing ships down to two. The reason for the differences in the titles is that the novel refers to the Starcatchers as a group, while the play focuses mainly on Molly, an apprentice Starcatcher and how she teams up with Peter to keep the starstuff in the right hands. The Broadway show only used 15 cast members, deciding to make Molly the only female on stage to emphasize her struggle for respect in a man’s world. You can find several productions on YouTube.

Until next week or, as they say in the play: TTFN

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*MAMLA – The Most Amazing Museum of Los Angeles – available for pre-order from the Book Baby Bookshop or on Amazon (just search for Margerum).