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Peter
Pan 
As early as
1905, a musical version of Peter Pan had appeared on the New York
stage featuring Maude Adams as the boy who wouldn't grow up. In
1924, Jerome Kern tried his hand at adapting the popular children's
story, and in 1950, Leonard Bernstein wrote five songs for a stage
adaptation of Peter Pan which featured Boris Karloff and Jean
Arthur. But it was not until 1954 that the most popular stage
version of Peter Pan would be born thanks to producer Jerome Robbins.
Developed as part of the Los Angeles and San Francisco Civic Light
Opera series, Robbins originally planned to use the relatively
unknown composer/lyricist team of Mark Charlap and Carolyn Leigh,
but when he began to realize the potential of the project, he
turned to the more established team of Jule Styne, Betty Comden
and Adolph Green for additional songs. The original production
featured Mary Martin as Peter Pan and Cyril Ritchard as Captain
Hook. It opened at the Winter Garden Theatre on October 20, 1954
and ran for 152 performances. On September 6, 1979, the show was
revived at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre with Sandy Duncan playing
the lead role. This production proved even more popular than the
first, enjoying a run of 551 performances.
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