Things are getting real in Neverland | Arts & Entertainment

Thunder River Theatre Company will close out its 2025-26 season with “For Peter Pan on her 70th Birthday,” a theatrical deconstruction of one of the most iconic stories of the 20th century. 

The play will run over the next three weekends, starting on Friday and ending on May 17. The production blends memory, complex family relationships and imagination into a meditation on aging, loss and the enduring pull of childhood in the face of one’s own mortality.

Playwright Sarah Ruhl wrote the play as a gift for her mother on her 70th birthday. Ruhl’s mother played Peter Pan on the stage, hence the “her” in the title. Ruhl also played the role of Peter Pan as a child actress and she remembers her father bringing flowers to her after performances. The play has deep resonance for her as it relates to both of her parents. 

“The playwright grew up in dusty theaters around Chicago,” said director Renee Prince, who has deep ties with TRTC. “This play is really an exploration of aging and growing up as seen through the Peter Pan myth. The play truly is a love letter to family and to the power of what theater can do in our lives.”

The play’s structure draws inspiration from Japanese Noh theater in which the story is told in three distinct movements. It moves from a hospital room where grown siblings have gathered at their father’s hospital bedside during his final days to a breakfast table during their father’s wake. The last movement involves a dreamlike Neverland.

“It is such a wonderful piece that really captures the art of play,” said Missy Moore, artistic director of TRTC. “It is placed in the world of magical realism but deals with very real-life issues.”

And while the play is inspired by Japanese Noh, it is decidedly set in the Midwest, a common theme for a play written by Ruhl. 

“The aesthetic of the play really embraces Iowa and the Midwest,” Prince said. “Ruhl calls it a ‘Midwestern Noh drama’ which has been fun to play with.”

The production features veteran performers from the Roaring Fork Valley: Wendy Perkins, Chris Wheatley, Owen O’Farrell, Jeff Carlson, Kristin Carlson and Bob Moore. 

“We’re working with some of the elders in our theater community, people who have really built this theater community, and that is something that’s very special to me, to be able to honor their talent and their legacies and the gifts that they’ve brought to this valley for decades,” Prince said. 

Carlson said Prince gathered the cast together for a meal before rehearsals started to create a family feel. 

“We practiced being a family together,” Carlson said. “We shared stories with each other, interrupted one another, went off on tangents, settled into those kinds of filial relationships. And of course we’ve all worked with one another over the years. We left that dinner already feeling like a family.”

Perkins plays Wendy in the show and said the character resonated with her deeply.

“Being in my 70s, I am dealing with all of the issues in the play — end of life, family relationships, politics. You realize, ‘It’s OK not to feel grown up.’ The joy of imagination and play are at the forefront of the piece,” Perkins said.

“What I’d like the audience to take away from it is that real combination of heart and joy, and not forgetting that we all can tap into that in our lives, and the reconfirmation that whatever feelings you’re having, it’s OK,” she added.

Carlson said he hopes watching siblings gather around one another and really delving into more profound conversations is a reminder for people to do the same in their own lives. 

“I hope that what folks take away is a desire to connect with their loved ones, family or friends, and ask them, ‘What do you think and feel about growing up, growing old? What does death mean to you? Are you scared of it? What do you think?’ I hope it sparks conversations over nooks and dinner tables in people’s own lives,” he said.

As Moore looks back on the company’s landmark 30th season, she takes pride in the diversity and quality of the slate. 

“My hope is that, especially those who have seen the entire season, people see the journey and the arc of it,” Moore said. “We started off with [a play by] Sam Shepard, an iconic classic, ‘True West,’ and then we jumped into a one-man show, ‘An Iliad,’ based on one of theater’s oldest texts. 

“Our next production was a very dark comedy and satire, ‘Secretary,’ and then we literally built a mountain for ‘K2,’ a show with characters staring into a physical and meta-physical abyss, and now this. I think that if you can actually apply yourself in the theater, anything’s possible.”

Prince said TRTC’s ethos fits well into a community rooted in pushing limits and taking risks.

“This community talks a lot about adventure risk-taking and outdoor risk-taking and Thunder River takes huge, big, audacious creative risks,” she said. “That is a testament to Missy’s vision here, but it’s a perfect theater company for this community.”

Moore credited Prince with posing the right questions that drill to the core of human experience. 

“At our very first readthrough of ‘Peter Pan,’ Renee hit the nail when she said to the cast, ‘This play grapples with big existential questions, and what better craft than theater to take a deep dive into it?’”

For more information and tickets, visit thunderrivertheatre.com.