Starting Fresh, Staying Young :: CIC's Daniel Hutchins on the Restored 'Peter Pan'

A town as invested in theater as Boston can never have too much to offer its audiences. Every year sees new theater companies birthed in the city, and one of the newest is called Create. Inspire. Change., a.k.a., CIC Theater Company.

It's always exciting to learn of a new theater company, and this one promises to bring quality stagings to the area's underserved children, as well as the general theatergoing public. Given that mission, CIC's choice for its inaugural production is not so surprising: A "reconstructed" text of J.M. Barrie's classic "Peter Pan, or, The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up."

What audiences that grew up with the beloved boy who refuses to become an adult himself may not know is that "Peter Pan," although extant in the form of a novel by Barrie, was originally a play that was first performed in 1904. It was only later, in 1911, that Barrie wrote the now-classic novel "Peter and Wendy." A plethora of film and TV projects followed, but "Peter Pan" has never left the stage - even though, as Daniel R. Hutchins IV, CIC's Producing Artistic Director, and Executive Director of the company's board, tells EDGE, Barrie produced a number of slightly varying scripts for different productions.

EDGE had the pleasure of chatting with Hutchins recently about CIC's upcoming "Peter Pan," the new company's mission and local partnerships, and CIC's dreams for the future.

EDGE: I'm very curious about your new theater company. I think "Peter Pan" is your first production?

Daniel Hutchins: We've done some other stuff, but this is the first production under this company, with this name.

EDGE: Boston is a huge theater town and a great place to start a new company. What prompted you to create CIC?

Daniel Hutchins: I'm a graduate of the Boston Conservatory and while I was at the Boston Conservatory I directed a production of a show called "Disney's on the Record." It was performed at the school, but we also performed it for the local YMCA. I found it to be one of the most fulfilling and rewarding theatrical experiences I've had to date. And, I love Boston. I grew up here.

EDGE: What is your company's theme or mission?

Daniel Hutchins: Our mission is to provide theater for the Boston community, and specifically underserved kids in the Boston area. For "Peter Pan" we're doing three public performances to try to engage the community as a whole, and then we're also doing what we call outreach events in the afternoon where we're partnering with two organizations, the Friends of the Children and the Boston Center for Youth & Families. They're coming into the theater and we're going to do an hour workshop with them before the shows, kind of exposing them to the different things that go into creating the show that you don't necessarily see when you watch the show. And then they'll see the show and there'll be a talk-back taking place after.

EDGE: Will you also be doing other kinds of outreach or coordinating with other organizations to benefit children - charities, for example, and institutions meant to help kids?

Daniel Hutchins: Yeah - definitely in the future we want to expand. In future seasons we want to bring kids to shows as well as go to their schools and perform shows there, and teach workshops. I'd also like to work with organizations in Boston to get kids not only watching theater, but performing in theater and creating theater. The arts are the first thing that get cut from education [budgets] and I think it's so important for kids to get exposed to that outlet for expressing themselves. We're working with an organization called to Artists Striving to End Poverty. They are based in New York but they have an office here in Boston. They are helping us find these kinds and find the organizations to spread the word.

EDGE: I was going to ask "Why 'Peter Pan?' " but I think that's self-explanatory! [Laugher] But I am curious about the fact that your production will use a "reconstructed" text of the play. What's the story there?

Daniel Hutchins: This is a version that was done by the Royal Shakespeare Company in London in the late '80s. Trevor Nunn took J.M. Barrie's original text, and he noticed that in all the versions J. M. Barrie put out of 'Peter Pan,' it never was the same way twice. He added a character [to serve as] the Storyteller, which in our version is Wendy, and his mission in writing this extra test was to try to find the authorial voice he felt was missing from "Peter Pan." It was present in the stage directions, but the audience never heard it. I think that's so cool about it is if you didn't know it's a new version, he's done such a fantastic job of matching J.M. Barrie's style of writing that it all sounds like one voice, which I think is phenomenal."

EDGE: John Caird is also credited with this version. What was his role in creating the "reconstructed" text?

Daniel Hutchins: It was an equal collaboration between the two of them! They both reconstructed and directed this "revised" version of the text. I think that's pretty cool and sometimes rare. Collaboration can be so hard when it comes to co-writing and co-directing, but if you read their preface before this version of the play they speak so highly of not only collaborating with each other, but all of the designers they worked with on the previous production.

EDGE: Are you directing this production?

Daniel Hutchins: I am.

EDGE: What are you looking to do with it? Give us a retro "Peter Pan," or maybe go the opposite direction and create more of a "Peter Pan" with a 21st Century gloss?

Daniel Hutchins: I definitely want to encapsulate the style of the original "Peter Pan." As a kid, I was always a huge fan of the Disney movie, and it's just been a story that's stuck with me. As I go through the different versions, from the Disney movie through the different films, to "Finding Neverland," to "Peter and the Starcatcher," I personally find that I am most inspired by this text that he created, and I want to dig into it and really find what in this version of the story really works. As far as composition and staging, [I'm] going for a more minimal 'Peter and the Starcatcher'-type staging. My hope is that it will allow the kids to actively engage their imaginations, instead of having big effects everywhere around them.

EDGE: There was a recent production of 'Peter and the Starcatcher' at the Lyric Stage Company. Did you happen to see it?

Daniel Hutchins: I did see it, yeah.

EDGE: Did you take any inspiration from that staging? Were you making mental notes of what you wanted to do with your production?

Daniel Hutchins: Oh, for sure! First of all, 'Peter and the Starcatcher' is one of my favorite plays. I think it's just a beautiful text. And it's something that I loved so much about the Lyric production was that they really engaged the audience. Form the moment that it started, for me as an audience member, I felt completely engaged by the actors when they were story telling, which made me feel interested in them when they were playing their individual characters. For example, Molly flying was so simple, but yet so impactful to me. I definitely found inspiration from that.

EDGE: You'll be putting this production on at the Boston Center for the Arts. Do you have any sort of agreement or plans for a long-term association with the BCA?

Daniel Hutchins: We're performing in the Plaza Black Box Theater. I have thoroughly enjoyed our relationship with them so far, and hope to forge and create a strong partnership with them in the future; I love their mission, I think their spaces are wonderful, and they are so producer-friendly and want to make your mission and what you want in your company come to life. Sometimes that can be hard to find.

EDGE: Are you thinking in terms of a whole season right now, or is it more a matter of wanting to get this first production put up and then see what's next?

Daniel Hutchins: Just for right now we want to get this first production put up, but we definitely will be doing future seasons. We're working on the selection for next year right now, and we'll have an announcement on that out in late August / early September.

"Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Would Not Grow Up" will run June 29 - July 1 at the Boston Center for the Arts. For more information, please visit http://www.cictheaterco.org/new-page

For tickets, please go to http://www.bostontheatrescene.com/season/iPeter-Pan-or-The-Boy-Who-Would-Not-Grow-Upi