Pacific Festival Ballet, the resident ballet company of the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza Countrywide Performing Arts Center, will stage its annual spring performance on Friday with “Peter Pan.” The show will use the same high-tech device that made Cathy Rigby fly through the air in the original 1974 Broadway production. Mariah Murphy, a junior at Thousand Oaks High School, will star in the title role.
This is the second time the company has staged the ballet. “The first time we put on Peter Pan back in 2002,” Administrative Director Lori Sorensen, said. “you could hear the audience gasp when Peter Pan took off. It was unforgettable.”
Murphy will be joined by a cast of 135 members of California Dance Theatre, the official training school of Pacific Festival Ballet, as well as guest artists Mark Reyes as Mr. Smee, and Gary Franco in the role of Captain Hook.
There will be two performances on Friday. The first, a children’s full-length matinee, will begin at 4 p.m., to be followed by a 7:30 p.m. performance that will also feature a tribute to Scott Joplin, classical ballet variations and the Olympics.
Tickets for “Peter Pan” are on sale and can be obtained by calling the Civic Arts Box Office at 805.449.ARTS or through Ticketmaster. For more information, go to the California Dance Theatre Web site, at www.californiadancetheatre.com.