What do you think of when you think Peter Pan? Is it green tights? The lost boys? Pirates? For me, it’s flying! Well, get ready to fly with us all the way to Neverland, because we will be actually flying our actors! Exciting, right?
We’re working with professional flying effects company D2 Flying Effects. These professionals have a total of over 50 years between them in theatrical rigging – making them the perfect partners to help us make Peter Pan and the gang fly.
As you might have guessed, we’ll be flying Peter Pan, Tinkerbell, Wendy, John, and Michael – and it takes a fly crew of 6 to operate the rigging. Fly training starts this weekend when the Fly Director from D2 comes in on Saturday for load in. On Sunday, our Fly Crew will be training with D2’s Fly Director in 2 flight rehearsals – each lasting 3 hours with a 2 hour break in between to recharge! And we’ll also do some flying rehearsals with him on Monday as well.
While it is quite the undertaking to prepare our crew and actors for flying, it is also extremely rewarding. I had a quick chat with our Production Manager Jeff Brown about why working with D2 Flying Effects is such a big deal.
“For one, this is a really rare opportunity for our local talent pool of actors to work with a professional rigging company and actually fly! We don’t do this every day, so this is a really unique chance for not only our actors to challenge themselves, but also for our crew operating the rigging to do something new. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity on our stage and the most challenging flight choreography we’ve ever done. It’s going to be awesome.” -Jeff Brown
We can’t wait to share this production with you all! Make sure to grab your tickets if you haven’t already 🙂
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