Peter Pan Will Be NBC’s Next Live Musical Event

On the heels of NBC’s success with The Sound of Music, the network promised that it would air another live event during the holidays. Now, NBC has announced that it’s next live event will be Peter Pan.

Robert Greenblatt, the NBC Entertainment chairman, released a statement:

“We’re very pleased to be underway on Peter Pan as our next live holiday musical for the whole family. In the hopes that lightning strikes twice, we think we’ve landed on another great Broadway musical — which ironically also starred Mary Martin — that is a timeless classic for all audiences, young and old, who just never want to grow up.”

The big complaint with NBC’s The Sound of Music was that some of the cast, which included Carrie Underwood and Stephen Moyer, had more musical training than acting skills, which often made for wooden performances. With the choice of Peter Pan, where less emphasis is put on the vocals, it may give NBC the extra push they need to make their live event a critical success.

The Sound of Music attracted 18.6 million viewers, which resulted over numerous re-airings of the event. Even though it was considered a success, critics and fans were appalled as were some of the original actors from the motion picture.

The most exciting part of the next live event is it sounds like NBC wants to focus more on the razzmatazz of it all.

Greenblatt revealed the preliminary plans for Peter Pan:

“Get ready for flying children and some kind of state-of-the-art light technology for Tinkerbell. As for the flying, you see the wires, it’s part of the charm of the show, we’ll do what we can to disguise them.”

Some of the Broadway songs featured in Peter Pan are, “I’m Flying,” “I’ve Gotta Crow,” “I Won’t Grow Up,” and “Never Never Land.” As mentioned by Greenblatt, the original actress to play Peter Pan was Mary Martin.

This isn’t the first time NBC has an association with Peter Pan. The original Broadway production was aired in a live broadcast on NBC in 1955 to a powerful viewership of 65 million viewers. It was such a huge success that NBC broadcast it again in 1956 and 1960.

As for suggestions on who should play Peter, while Greenblatt joked that he wanted Miley Cyrus, we can definitely see someone like Amy Poehler in the role. The comedian has the stature, the looks, and an already existing relationship with NBC.