I was curious as to whether the music was live or recorded, too.
Some good celeb tweets in this: 'Peter Pan Live!': The Best Tweets - The New York Times
I believe that in the original novel/play (which this musical follows), Peter does give the location as “second to the right”. I’m not sure if the Disney movie was the first to change it to “second star to the right.”
I recored it and got through the first half of it last night. The woman who played Peter was quite good, I thought. This was one of my very favorite childhood things (I’m of the Mary Martin = Pater Pan generation), so it was very nostalgic. I enjoyed what I’ve seen so far. A thousand times better than SoM, live, which I thought was awful.
Is there any real reason to not have a guy play Peter Pan? Aren’t there plenty of young looking male actors who could fit the bill? Is it just “tradition” to have a woman play him? This latest PP was quite good, but something about the hips just didn’t say “boy” to me. As a straight adult male, it’s a bit creepy to be even turned on the slightest by what is supposed to be a boy…
Interesting. Thanks, I didn’t know that.
So then what does “second to the right” mean? If the line had been different but made sense, I might have suspected a Disney change, but I can’t figure out what this would mean. No wonder he never gets any mail!
With such a well known line, the producers must have know it would sound like a flubbed line to most of the audience. I wonder why they chose to go with that, then? I guess I can at least stop feeling sorry for Williams if she didn’t really mess up a big moment, after all. 
ETA: That reminds me of another part, when Tinkerbell dies, the audience must revive her by clapping. I always thought the play had everyone chant “I do believe in fairies” to bring her back. Is that a different version?
**Hermione **is correct (appropriately enough in a thread about British children’s works). The line in the book is indeed “second to the right, and straight on till morning.” We are further told–I’m almost certain–that Peter makes up the directions because they sound good and because he wants to impress Wendy; he actually doesn’t know “how” to get there.
If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say that it sounds to Peter like something an adult in the real world might say in giving directions, only he’s garbled it somewhat (rather as if he’d once heard in his eavesdropping an adult say “Turn right at the second crossroad, then straight till you reach the lake”). Wendy is either not sophisticated enough or too wrapped up in the moment to recognize that it doesn’t make much sense.
I didn’t watch it. However, I was struck by how the ads insisted on showing us Christopher Walken! Dancing! And it was so comically unimpressive. He was just sort of marking. I thought, well, that’s rehearsal, maybe he’ll go harder in the actual show.
Apparently not?
Oh I agree. If there were no such thing as Twitter, I would have been bored witless–the fun for me came from the live tweeting. If I could go to a live show of Peter Pan with carte blanche to MSTK it with the audience, I’d be in! I’ve never seen a musical version of PP before (well, not counting the Disney version), though I do love the book, and I was surprised at how dull the songs were, too. Nothing really stuck out for me.
So, Captain Hook’s performance needed more cowbell?
I’m assuming I missed something - what’s the point of doing a live show on TV? I can’t imagine it’d replicate the experience of a show in a theater, and the idea just seems dumb to me. It’s like insisting on preparing and entire Thanksgiving meal over an open fire and ignoring the availability and practicality of a modern kitchen. I don’t get it.
For the record, I didn’t watch because I remember the version with Mary Martin and I didn’t want a cherished memory of my youth to be tarnished.
The out-in-the-open audience appeal: it’s An Event–something that many people might watch, so you watch it to keep up with the water-cooler conversations the next day. The less-out-in-the-open audience appeal: someone might screw up! Or even get hurt! (Thus NBC’s heavy promotion of the fact that there would be a lot of flying-harness work in the show.)
From the point of view of the network, the appeal is that though people can time-shift a show like PPL, proportionally fewer people will do so if it’s a live event.* Advertisers will pay more if they know the butts will be in the seats, and no fast-forwarding will render their ads pointless.
*Which is why sports is so profitable for all concerned: the teams, the leagues, and the networks.
Christopher Walken’s good, but he’s no David Steinberg.
Wife had me DVR it specifically to see how obtuse Walken’s performance would be.
It was pretty awful overall. Too long among many issues. Showing it on Thursday and having it end at 11:00pm was a terrible decision. I think NBC really failed on this.
Where has this been all my life?! Too hilarious!