Peter Pan

Apparently, spending the bulk of your time in Neverland really will stop you from growing up. Cathy Rigby won a Tony nomination for her performance as Peter Pan on Broadway in the 1990 revival. Now, at 59, she is once again soaring and scattering pixie dust at La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts, in a touring production by McCoy Rigby Entertainment, the company she runs with her husband, Tom McCoy. An earlier tour, in 2004-05, was billed as Rigby's farewell to the part she had claimed so definitively (even unseating Mary Martin)

Peter Pan is a timeless tale that resonates with people of all ages. Now you can see a stellar production of it at the Pantages with Tony Award nominee Cathy Rigby in the title role. Elaborate sets and flights of fancy are in store. The Pantages Theatre, 6233 Hollywood Blvd., L.A. Through Jan. 27. Times and prices vary. (323) 468-1770, http://www.broadwayla.org .

Roger Rees and Peter Pan go way back. The Welsh actor, director and impresario has been working on the current off-Broadway hit "Peter and the Starcatcher" for years, but his relationship with J.M. Barrie's fictional hero goes back almost 50 years. "My first acquaintance with Peter Pan was back when I lived in South London," Rees recalls over breakfast on the city's Upper West Side. "I was at art school and I needed to earn money, so I got a job as a stagehand at the Wimbledon Theatre and 'Peter Pan' was on tour there with Donald Sinden, who was playing Captain Hook.

Any show created by or with the late Jerome Robbins invariably retains its magic through decades of restagings. The scruffy-looking but endearing production of "Peter Pan" that opened Tuesday at the Pantages Theatre for a two-week run is no exception. His first show as both director and choreographer, "Peter Pan" found Robbins putting together the script from previous stage adaptations and author James Barrie's various editions and afterthoughts. He also invited Betty Comden, Adolph Green and Jule Styne to supplement the songs by Carolyn Leigh and Moose Charlap, and gave this patchwork of words and music the sense of a complete, living world that audiences soon came to recognize as a Robbins trademark.

Any show created by or with the late Jerome Robbins invariably retains its magic through decades of restagings. The scruffy-looking but endearing production of "Peter Pan" that opened Tuesday at the Pantages Theatre for a two-week run is no exception. His first show as both director and choreographer, "Peter Pan" found Robbins putting together the script from previous stage adaptations and author James Barrie's various editions and afterthoughts. He also invited Betty Comden, Adolph Green and Jule Styne to supplement the songs by Carolyn Leigh and Moose Charlap, and gave this patchwork of words and music the sense of a complete, living world that audiences soon came to recognize as a Robbins trademark.

'Peter Pan' Where: The threesixty Theatre on the grounds of the Orange County Performing Arts Center complex, Costa Mesa. When: Today-Nov. 21. Tues.-Friday, 7 p.m.; Saturday, 1 and 6 p.m.; Sunday, 12:30 and 6 p.m. Cost: $40-125. Information: 714-556-2787 or http://www.peterpantheshow.com

Peter Pan is a timeless tale that resonates with people of all ages. Now you can see a stellar production of it at the Pantages with Tony Award nominee Cathy Rigby in the title role. Elaborate sets and flights of fancy are in store. The Pantages Theatre, 6233 Hollywood Blvd., L.A. Through Jan. 27. Times and prices vary. (323) 468-1770, http://www.broadwayla.org .

THE PETER PAN CHRONICLES by Bruce K. Hanson (Birch Lane Press: $21.95, 288 pp). Peter Pan, that universal symbol of the boy-who-wouldn't-grow-up, has more frequent flyer miles than just about any childhood character. In this pleasant and cheery book, Hanson, obviously a great fan without being too gushy, traces Pan's creation as a character in the 1902 J.M. Barrie novel called "The Little White Bird" to a baby who ran away seven days after he was born.

Throughout much of Stephen Spielberg's new movie, "Hook," my 12-year-old son and I found ourselves in the same state as the character played by Robin Williams: struggling to remember. At one point, having returned to Never-Never Land as a middle-aged adult, Spielberg's Peter Banning (a.k.a. Peter Pan) finds himself in the now-ruined home of the Lost Boys and begins dimly to recall that Michael's bed was over there and John's was there.

"Peter Pan" at Fullerton College flies in on a gust of niggling problems that undercuts the magic in the timeless story about the boy who refuses to grow up. As always, it is pure magic when Peter, Wendy and the boys fly through the air, but there are glitches in this Never-Never Land, most notably the annoying distortions from the cast's body mikes. Director Gary Krinke has staged a very big, very busy version of the musical adaptation of Sir James M.

Cathy Rigby flies across the Pantages Theatre stage from Jan. 15 through 27 in J.M. Barrie's "Peter Pan," reprising her signature role, which earned her a 1991 Tony nomination. At age 60, the San Diego native still fits into the costume she wore for her 1974 debut as the boy who never grows up; theater producers had recruited her to parlay her fame as an Olympic gymnast into box-office gold. Rigby lives in La Habra Heights with her husband, Tom McCoy, who is also her partner in their theatrical production company, McCoy Rigby Entertainment, which produced her latest "Peter Pan" tour as well as productions of other American musicals.

"Peter and the Starcatcher," the family-friendly Broadway play from Disney Theatricals that is an informal prequel to "Peter Pan," has had several theatrical lives. The drama had developmental runs at the Williamstown Theater Festival and the La Jolla Playhouse. It eventually made its way to the New York Theatre Workshop in 2011 before transferring to Broadway in 2012. The show's next stop will be off-Broadway's New World Stages, after its scheduled close at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre on Jan. 20. The New World Stages feature a handful of modestly sized theaters and is currently the home of "Avenue Q," which also moved there after its Broadway run. "Peter" has not set an opening date or cast for New World Stages.

Screen legend Peter O'Toole announced Tuesday that he is retiring from acting . "It's time for me to chuck in the sponge," he said in a statement. "To retire from stage and screen. The heart for it has gone out of me; it won't come back. " O'Toole, who turns 80 on Aug. 2, achieved international stardom and his first Oscar nomination for David Lean's 1962 "Lawrence of Arabia," an Academy Award-winning epic. O'Toole was 27 when he earned the coveted title role. He went on to earn best actor nominations - but no wins - for 1964's "Becket," 1968's "The Lion in Winter," 1969's "Goodbye, Mr. Chips," 1972's "The Ruling Class," 1980's "The Stunt Man," 1982's "My Favorite Year" and 2006's "Venus.

Apparently, spending the bulk of your time in Neverland really will stop you from growing up. Cathy Rigby won a Tony nomination for her performance as Peter Pan on Broadway in the 1990 revival. Now, at 59, she is once again soaring and scattering pixie dust at La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts, in a touring production by McCoy Rigby Entertainment, the company she runs with her husband, Tom McCoy. An earlier tour, in 2004-05, was billed as Rigby's farewell to the part she had claimed so definitively (even unseating Mary Martin)

It's become something of a holiday tradition — every couple of years, Syfy turns out a star-studded prequel to a beloved children's story — "Tin Man" in 2007, "Alice " in 2009. This time, it's J.M. Barrie's "Peter Pan" that goes through the mirror darkly in "Neverland," a cleverly conceived, at times visually lovely, but criminally long imagining of how Peter became Pan. It's difficult to imagine a more oft-told tale than "Peter Pan," which, in recent memory has been made into two live action films ("Hook," "Peter Pan")

There were the Nine Old Men, Walt Disney's famed founding animators, and then there was visual stylist Mary Blair. Along with such legends as Marc Davis, Ollie Johnston, Frank Thomas and Wolfgang Reitherman, Blair worked on the studio's animated features for more than 20 years — the only woman to have such a prominent role at Disney. "She influenced the tone of the picture with her use of color and design," said Michael Giaimo, art director on Disney's 1995 "Pocahontas" and visual development artist on 2004's "Home on the Range.

Reporting From San Francisco ? Southern California audiences have become accustomed over the last two decades to being entertained inside a tent, thanks to Cirque du Soleil's elaborately made-up and costumed circus acts, with their otherworldly narratives delivered in other languages. By contrast, the production of "Peter Pan" that opens Sunday in a big-top setting in Costa Mesa is a familiar English-language tale that generations have experienced through theater, television and movies.

Roger Rees and Peter Pan go way back. The Welsh actor, director and impresario has been working on the current off-Broadway hit "Peter and the Starcatcher" for years, but his relationship with J.M. Barrie's fictional hero goes back almost 50 years. "My first acquaintance with Peter Pan was back when I lived in South London," Rees recalls over breakfast on the city's Upper West Side. "I was at art school and I needed to earn money, so I got a job as a stagehand at the Wimbledon Theatre and 'Peter Pan' was on tour there with Donald Sinden, who was playing Captain Hook.

At least when Peter Pan refused to grow up, we got flying, island peril, heroism and pirates as part of the package. With "Waiting for Forever," an insipid contemporary fairy tale about a lovestruck young vagabond shadowing a childhood sweetheart he can't bring himself to approach, we get stalking, juggling and cancer. Happy Valentine's Day! It's rare to find a movie protagonist who singularly fails on every count to be a compelling, sympathetic or even understandable figure, but dopey street performer Will (Tom Sturridge)