‘Peter Pan' in Atlanta: Classic with a new hook

When the harness-clad performers portraying the Darling children go aloft to fly for the first time, images of old London swirl across the 15,000-square-foot "screen," enveloping the actors and audience in the 1,300-seat theater below.

The convention-smashing show is the creation of Threesixty Entertainment, a theatrical production company based in London. It grew out of the opportunity scored by producers to put on a show in London's historic Kensington Gardens. Given that it's a key setting of J.M. Barrie’s timeless story about the boy who wouldn’t grow up, there was only one choice about what that would be, said co-producer Robert Butters.

Threesixty's producers were interested in "telling great classic stories in a contemporary way," Butters said, and, once the site was secured and the play selection made, things developed organically. So that actors could fly above the crowd, the producers opted for a tent with four "king poles" holding the big top up from the outside. Enter set designer William Dudley, who looked at those towering interior tent walls and called them "the most unbelievable canvas." Soon he was filling up that space -- larger than three Imax screens -- with a virtual version of circa 1904 London and beyond.

"Peter Pan" premiered in Kensington Gardens in May 2009, playing a 16-week sold-out engagement. Soon enough, that tent was sailing through the Panama Canal to San Francisco, where major media attention and positive word of mouth helped extend its Ferry Park run to 19 weeks.

It then moved to the Los Angeles area, on the grounds of the Orange County Performing Arts Center. Members of 24,000 households attended over 14 weeks, 19,000 of those households having never attended an event inside the arts center before -- suggesting the newfangled show may be courting an untapped audience.

Atlanta is the third U.S. stop. Why cross the country so soon?

"Atlanta has a great history for tented productions," said Butters, referring to the city's support of Cirque du Soleil's shows that are something different than a circus and to "Cavalia," a horse show that isn't your garden-variety equine display. Plus, producers were well aware of the Fox Theatre's reputation for selling out national tours.

"It's always a challenge when you come to a new city for a period of time and people don't know who you are," acknowledged Butters, a speed-talking Brit who worked for many years for Andrew Lloyd Webber. "But there's no traveling theater performance like this. I think it's unique at the moment."

On this hybrid of theater and film: "Until one sees it, one doesn't understand it really isn't just about the CGI. If it was just CGI, it would be a film. You can't tell the story [with CGI alone]. CGI gives us a chance to take people on a journey. The journey really occurs from London to Neverland, and the rest of [the CGI] is used very sparingly to augment what happens on the stage. It's a theatrical performance."

On how the audience knows where to focus its attention: "There's a lot going on onstage, there's a lot going on around you. ... The challenge is to not overwhelm the audience. It's something the director deals with. What goes on on the stage is choreographed to make sure it's understood, it's heard and it isn't lost on an entire audience who spans widely in age and [who see things differently depending on] where they sit."

On the rise of production-heavy tented shows: "When I worked for Webber, shows like 'The Phantom of the Opera' were an amazing stimulus to set up a circuit of performing arts centers that grew on the back of really great content. There's not as much content now, and a lot of theaters and performing arts centers want more content. I think the ability to tell a story in a unique way is going to happen more and more. Cirque did that [with the circus]. We are just the first of the people who will start to create content for theaters that are mobile. I think there's room in the market -- I believe there will be a circuit of content that will play in great new locations, that can bring families out that have not typically been [to conventional theaters]."

On coming directly to America from London instead of touring Britain and Europe: "America is still the standard for theatrical touring. And there's the language issues in Europe. People look to America. They find that we've done well in San Francisco and Orange County, and people overseas say, 'Wow!' Plus you've got the population. And everything's on a road from there to here; you know it's going to get here eventually anyway."

On subtracting some of the Disney embellishments to the story while at the same time adding high-tech elements: "'Peter Pan' is a hundred-plus years old, but it's a great story. And if Barrie saw this production, I think he'd say, 'I'm really proud of the way this story has held up and the way it's being told using today's tools.'"

Preview

"Peter Pan"

By the numbers

140 -- minutes, show run time, counting one 20-minute intermission

200 -- computers working four weeks to render virtual London

400 -- square miles of 1904 London rendered

12 -- projectors to deliver 360-degree images on tent wall

10 million -- pixels

5 -- actors remaining from original London cast, joined by 19 Americans

64 -- shows scheduled for Atlanta, with extension possible if there is demand