I've done Peter Pan a number of times, and also have a soft spot for it.
But there was this one production - it was a community theatre that got me in on short notice to accompany and MD, in the last week of rehearsal or so. Good production, but hampered by a set they had rented at the last minute (I can't remember if their scene designer was fired or quit - but I think it was one of those two). Mostly it worked out ok, but somehow the last set change in Act II (going into the home underground) was impossible. I had no chance to create new scene change music, so all we could do was play the little bit of "Wendy" provided in the score at that point, over and over and over and over and over. And over. And over.
And over.
They had the Lost Boys come out "in one" to improvise movement/dance and sing their "we have a mother, at last we have a mother" over and over and over, which really didn't help much, except that there was something to watch, lol. And I would predict that the average time for this change was 3-4 minutes, which in that context is FOREVER.
Looking back, I don't know why I didn't suggest playing the Overture again, or something...
(PLUS, much as I love the show, I've always felt that Act II is way overlong - it works properly in terms of the layout of the story, but oh, it feel like it never ends lol. So this extended scene change only made it seem longer...) |
