THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, November 19, 1994 TAG: 9411190038
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TERESA ANNAS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 125 lines
LAST TUESDAY, backstage at the Wells Theater, Captain Hook was making little cherry cheesecakes for all his special friends. When Peter Pan strolled by in jeans and jeans jacket, Hook let go his sinister side.
``Here, have a treat!'' implored the very tall Ryan Hilliard, who portrays Hook and Mr. Darling in the Virginia Stage Company's production of ``Peter Pan,'' the musical that opened Friday night.
``Thanks, Ryan!'' said 4-foot-11-inch Terri Girvin, reaching up to hug him at his hip.
This peaceable kingdom had many counties. On stage, Ryan Drescher was practicing flight. Crew members stood by as the Virginia Beach seventh-grader, harnessed to a cable, worked at coordinating her moves with that of the stage hands manipulating the rig.
Clearly, it's not as easy at it looks. One try had Drescher, who portrays Wendy's daughter Jane, bumping into the window ledge instead of floating out toward Neverland.
``She came down between the ledge and the top step,'' called out crew member Dave Potvin. Apparently, to get to Neverland, you must try again.
Backstage, everyone seemed bound to imitate Wendy, the sweet and nurturing make-do mom Peter Pan brings to the lost boys. In the story, she and her two brothers fly from their plush turn-of-the-century bedroom to an island where children are left to ticking crocodiles, dancing Indians and musical pirates.
All seems better, though, once Wendy arrives.
Hilliard's cheesecakes were like a typical Wendy entree. And Bonnie Walker, the Broadway director and choreographer, is Wendy Darling in dance slippers.
She's the ever-calm mom, and all the actors are her children.
A week ago, Charlie Hensley, the stage company's artistic director, and Mary Christine Danner, a Norfolk actress who landed the principal role of Mrs. Darling, were discussing Walker's confounding serenity.
``I have been trying to stress her out, but she's not letting me,'' Hensley said to Danner, pretending to be put out.
From descriptions of her modus operandi, Walker should be writing books on management.
``She's very pleasant,'' Danner said, ``but firm when she needs to be. She's warm with everyone. And she gets what she wants.''
``Peter Pan'' is Walker's first experience with regional theater. ``I'm usually on Broadway or out in L.A.,'' she said.
A decade ago, Walker was artistic supervisor for the ``Peter Pan'' revival on Broadway starring Sandy Duncan. She worked closely with the late Ron Field, a choreographer who reworked Jerome Robbins' moves from the original 1954 musical.
``That's the production Charlie Hensley had seen and loved so much. And that's what he wanted me to do,'' Walker said.
She took the job partly because it had been a decade since she worked on ``Peter Pan.'' And the show ``makes me very happy. I think it's lovely work. And a lot of it is certainly mine.''
Walker sat in the seating area of Wells Theater, watching the stage crew as they refined the technical end of the show.
``We worked on Tink this morning,'' Walker said. ``She comes very much alive on stage now.''
How so? Walker won't be too specific. ``Just say that Tinkerbell worked on her blocking. And she finally got her lines.''
You don't think Tinkerbell's real? Don't dare say that around Walker.
And then there's Nana, the most adorable stage dog since Little Orphan Annie's Sandy.
There's a rumor going around that John Brady, the actor who plays Hook's right-hand man, Smee, provides the action inside what looks like a hot and heavy shaggy-dog costume. Walker would like to squash that rumor.
``We also like to think of Nana as being alive. And the crocodile too,'' she said matter-of-factly.
``They say it's a show for all ages, and it is. I don't think any of us want to grow up. In our hearts, we always want to feel young. If we didn't, it would be sad. Peter Pan reminds us that it's important to be joyful.''
Girvin, Walker said, ``has that impish, joyish, little-boy quality.'' Plus she can sing and dance and act. All of that ``is hard to find.''
All those talents were honed in Girvin since her childhood in Southern California. At age 3, she was taught to sing by her mother, a vocal coach. She studied dance for a decade, starting at an early age.
Otherwise, the redheaded, freckled pixie was raised a boy, so to speak. She was a tomboy, competing in gymnastics and climbing trees with the guys.
``I had three brothers, and I did anything they did,'' Girvin said. ``My mother and father separated when I was young, and we ended up staying with my father. So I was with aaalll boys.''
Later, her father remarried, bringing two more boys into the household.
Girvin's performance career began early. She and her two older brothers formed a harmonizing vocal trio, The Rolling Express, singing Monkees and Beatles tunes at functions. At age 7, she played Gretel in a local production of ``The Sound of Music.''
Now 32, she studied fashion design and landed a high-paying job as a patternmaker for a large children's wear firm. But her stage fever never cooled.
Her big break came a decade ago, when she was hired to climb inside the tiny costume for the lead baby dinosaur in the 1985 film ``Baby . . . The Secret of the Lost Legend.''
The hefty sum she earned paid for extensive musical theater training. Her journey to New York came by way of Phoenix, Ariz. Since moving to New York two years ago, she's landed numerous off-Broadway roles, including a major part in a Southern comedy with music, ``Hysterical Blindness,'' which just closed.
As Peter Pan, ``I am having the time of my life,'' she said. ``I've wanted to play this part so long. And it's a part I should be playing all the time.''
Another connection: Girvin knows all about flying.
``I've had dreams of flying,'' she said.
Her mother likely spurred those dreams. On days when the tooth fairy was expected, ``instead of just putting money under the table, my mother would get dressed up in a tutu and come into our bedroom at night with sparkly things. She wouldn't wake us up. But we'd wake in the morning and find all this glitter on us.
``Then she would tell us: `I saw you last night. She took you flying.'
``And so, in my mind, as a kid, every time I lost a tooth, I would think I had flown,'' Girvin said. ``Because my mom told me I did.
``I remember that feeling of being up in the air. I remember that feeling of freedom.''
As Peter Pan says: ``I am youth! I am joy! I am freedom!'' ILLUSTRATION: Virginia Stage Company color photo
Ryan Hilliar portrays Captain Hook and Terri Girvin is Peter Pan in
the musical at the Wells Theater.
Photo
Director and choreographer Bonnie Walker is back with ``Peter Pan''
after a decade.
by CNB