Thank you, Ross Petty.
Last night was the opening of Peter Pan in Wonderland, Petty’s latest holiday panto. It is the 20th anniversary for this beloved Toronto tradition, and includes the creator and star of the show’s final stage appearance. It’s his just deserts to go out with such a stellar production.
The show will live on, and Petty will surely work behind the scenes scrambling tirelessly to find the sponsors and put the shows together for Toronto.
We’ve covered Petty’s productions for years and years. And, it’s also become part of my own family tradition. My daughter and her best bud are 10 now, and have mercilessly booed Petty through many male and more often female roles as the chief villain. They consider Petty to be the finest actor on the planet. The guy who plays Harry Potter was a close second, but he’s fallen off the charts.
It has become something of a holiday kickoff. We watch the shows, we grab a hot chocolate and stroll over to Queen Street to look at the holiday window displays at The Bay and invariably catching a whiff of the Christmas spirit before the end of the evening. What more could one possibly ask of a theatrical production?
As Petty often informs the audience, we’ll “never see this at The Nutcracker.” A shout-out of sorts to that other holiday tradition put together down at the National Ballet of Canada with some help from Petty’s wife, Karen Kain.
And, yes, they both starred in the original pantomime 20 years ago.
It’s been good. I hope it continues, but there will be another villain to boo. If Petty knows anything, he knows that a familiar face is by far the most important criteria. We love booing Ross because he’s there every year coming back for more, relishing the experience. The joy is there, writ large for all to see.
And, it’s a joy that is infectious.
The cast that surrounded Ross on stage last night was the most talented I can remember. The show, one of the best he’s ever done — a cross between Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland. In this mashup of a plot Hook (Ross Petty) lures Wendy and Peter to Wonderland where he hopes to utilize his considerable evil genius to acquire Wendy’s secret stash of pixie dust to open the magic tickle trunk, destroying kid’s imagination in the process and putting an end to all the storyland characters. Heavy, I know.
Regular cast mates Eddie Glen as Smee and Dan Chameroy as Tinkerbum are, of course, perfect and having a blast alongside Petty. Jessica Holmes as the Queen of Hearts is wonderful and it was good to see her back in the panto this year. Fingers crossed her involvement will continue as she is one person that could seriously help ensure the panto’s future success.
But, we know all this. What sets this particular production apart are the contributions of the rest of the cast straight across the board from Anthony MacPherson’s enthusiastic Peter Pan and Steffi DiDomenicantonio as Wendy to Alice, Cheshire Cat and the Mad Hatter presented as the three guardians of Wonderland. The trio — Jordan Clark, Lamar Johnson and Taveeta Szymanowicz — are all stars of the popular kids' TV show The Next Step and are seriously talented dancers with a superbly high energy level and a passion to put smiles on people’s faces. They fit right in with this crew.
Even the pirate henchmen and the Queen’s guards, the cronies as it were, are all so strong in their performances that they demand and deserve our attention. Their enthusiasm was a delight to watch, matched by their skill. There was even a hip-hop loving crocodile, another throwback to a past production of Peter Pan.
One would be hard-pressed not to find something appealing in this production: the adults-only jokes that zing safely over pint-sized heads, the gorgeous singing, the stunning dance numbers and Tinkerbum, for the love of Pete, Tinkerbum! This is it Toronto. Go. Have your fun.
Oh, and Ross, one more thing: Boooooooooooo!
