Peter and the Star Catcher and More!

 

How fun, I just got back from three days, five plays, three pre-play discussions,  a backstage tour and a actor's seminar.

 My book club,  (all of us shown above at dinner)  the Waldon Ladies Book Club, attends the Shakespeare Festival in Cedar City, about three hours south of us, every year.

To the left is one of our guides on our back stage tour, a first for us ... and we learned all kinds of fun things, like that it can take 80 hours to hand tie a wig ... (Human hairs are tired into a fine netting.)  Such a wig costs the Festival $2500 ... whoa.

Here are some of us at the an actor's seminar.   An actor talks about how he came to be in the business, then tells insider tales of the Festival and other work he/she has done.  These are held in 'the pine grove' ... near the green shows stage, an outdoor stage that features dancing, singing, and comic antics every evening, for which there is no charge.

 We all loved the plays we saw this year, including two Shakespearean plays, The Tempest, we saw in the outdoor replica 'Globe' theater. We also saw Anything Goes by Cole Porter ... which was very fun. In addition to the Festival plays we attended Thoroughly Modern Milly at the Tuacahn Theater in St. George, another hour south ... then last of all we watched Peter and the Star Catcher, just off Broadway.  This is the book we had all read for August, and which we all enjoyed.  It is written by Dave Barry, and a cohort, so of course it is very funny.  It is the prequel to James Barrie's Peter Pan, and explains how 'Neverland' as we have all come to know and love it, came to be.

I admit I liked the book better than the play.  The book is fun and funny and sometimes touching ... the play borders on silly and, well, more silly. 

... and after all the fun, it was time to return home to my own Peter Pan, who resides in my bedroom.  It is a four foot tall painting that was done by an artist for a magazine cover.  I found it at an estate sale years ago and fell in love.   I have always wondered what magazine cover it graced ... but will probably never know.