The hard working Mount Elizabeth Middle Secondary School Musical Theatre club know never to say never, and now they’ve learned to say never never.
The next stage show opens on January 17 at 8 p.m. and is the classic story of Peter Pan.
Tickets are for sale at the door or at Hollywood Video.
The club and performers have a proven track record of putting on amazing performances, but this one should stand out by having audiences looking upwards.
As the timeless tale has flying acrobatics, so to will this performance, and the school has brought up a flight director from Las Vegas to ensure there’s experience and talent behind the gravity-defying stunts.
Johnny Pickett has been at his current company Flying by Foy, since 1999, and it’s a company with strong roots in Peter Pan.
It’s founder, Peter Foy, flew Mary Martin as Peter Pan in 1954, said Pickett.
“There’s not that many companies in the world that do what we do,” he said, explaining why the school would turn to Las Vegas to find a flight director.
The company handles flying performances for everything from high school productions to broadway shows to TV and movies, he added.
“Everything comes with its challenges and its fun aspects. What’s great about working with high school kids is, frankly, I come to Kitimat and I’m kind of the rock star, I’m the one making kids fly, “ he said. “When I’m working in Hollywood working on an award show...then I’m just one small cog in a very big wheel. There’s no real difference in what I’m doing but there’s the difference in perspective as to how important it is to the overall production.”
This will be Pickett’s 92nd time putting on the flights for a Peter Pan show and he knows what he’s doing. It took nine hours to install the equipment and the cast and crew have spent hours rehearsing the flying segments.
Pickett said that students are usually very receptive and excited about flying performances, even more so than professional actors.
As for his opinion of the local drama scene, he’s impressed.
“Lets face it, you guys are in the middle of nowhere, and this is a great facility, Mr. Jones is really on top of things, the kids are really enthusiastic,” he said. “There’s a lot of excitement in the community about it... and from everything that I can see you’ve got a real nice healthy program going on here.”