“Finding Neverland,” the Broadway musical about how J.M. Barrie created Peter Pan, has been on a national tour since October 2016. That’s long enough for it to have undergone a few cast changes.
When the show flies into The Bushnell Aug. 1 to 6 it will star Billy Harrigan Tighe as J.M. Barrie, Christine Dwyer as Sylvia Llewelyn Davies, Karen Murphy as Mrs. du Maurier, Kristine Reese as Mary Barrie and John Davidson — the TV game show host, Disney movie star and star of numerous Broadway and off-Broadway shows — in the dual role of Charles Frohman/Captain Hook. Of those five, only Dwyer has been with the tour since it began.
“Finding Neverland” was written by James Graham (book) and Gary Barlow and Eliot Kennedy (music and lyrics). It’s directed by Diane Paulus, artistic director of the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Mass., where the musical had its U.S. premiere in 2014. “Finding Neverland” is based on the 2004 movie of the same name, and both projects emanated from Allan Knee’s 1998 play “The Man Who Was Peter Pan.”
Performances are Tuesday through Thursday at 7:30 p.m., Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 2 and 8 p.m. and Sunday at 1 and 6:30 p.m. $22.50 to $112.50. 166 Capitol Ave., Hartford. 860-987-5900, bushnell.org.
From Satchmo To Shakespeare
The actor John Douglas Thompson is speaking at 2 p.m. Sunday, July 30, at Gunn Memorial Library, 5 Wykeham Road, Washington. The talk, titled “A Life in Parts — A Conversation with actor John Douglas Thompson and the Shakespeare Society” is concerned with Thompson’s Shakespeare roles, but you may also know him from “Satchmo at the Waldorf” (which had its world premiere at the Long Wharf Theatre in 2012) or the recent Broadway revival of August Wilson’s “Jitney.”
Early in his career, Thompson was in a 1986 production of “Othello” starring Charles Dutton at Yale Repertory Theatre, and worked regularly at Trinity Repertory Theatre in Providence and the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Mass. Thompson famously played Othello himself in 2009 at New York City’s Theatre for a New Audience. Since then, he’s appeared in New York productions of “Antony and Cleopatra” (as Antony), “Troilus and Cressida” (as Agamemnon) and Christopher Marlowe’s “Tamburlaine the Great” (as Tamburlaine). The Gunn Memorial Library talk is free, but registration is requested. 860-868-7586, gunnlibrary.org.
