Discovering the Man who Created Peter Pan: Talking to Mark Bacon about FINDING NEVERLAND

Mark Bacon (center) and cast of the National tour of Finding Neverland
photo by Denise Trupe

by Julia Bashaw

It is safe to say that probably everyone knows the story of Peter Pan, the tale about a boy who never grew up and chose to stay a kid forever in a faraway place called Neverland. But fewer people know the story of the creator of this beloved story. J.M. Barrie is the playwright who invented the faith, trust, and pixie dust journey of Peter Pan, Tinkerbell, and Wendy Darling. The musical Finding Neverland, which is based on the successful film of the same name, takes J.M. Barrie’s life and puts it to song, taking audiences through his life as he begins to create this timeless adventure. The National Tour of this crowd pleasing musical comes to the Orpheum Theatre in Downtown Phoenix this coming weekend with Mark Bacon playing the role of James Matthew Barrie.

“Finding Neverland is basically how J.M. Barrie came to write Peter Pan,” Mark Bacon stated. “It's about how he started off as a writer in the early 1900s of London. He meets Sylvia Llewelyn Davies and her four sons, who help inspire him to really ignite his imagination and write a story that has never been told before. This man risked everything. He put his professional career on the line to really achieve something great.”

Not everyone at the time of creation approved of Peter Pan. Having actors fly onstage? It was viewed as preposterous. Barrie truly did risk his career striving to create the story of Peter Pan. But he was inspired by the Llewelyn Davies boys who he had become acquainted with at Kensington Gardens where he would walk his Saint Bernard. The show follows Barrie as he builds friendships with the family and becomes moved by the way the children play and use their imagination. In turn, imagination becomes a key component in the show itself for both children and adults.

“The show does an awesome job incorporating that into the storyline for adults,” Mark Bacon began. “There is literally a scene and song about how grown-ups have lost their sense of ‘play’ and as a result must relearn to see things ‘through the eyes of a child’. Finding Neverland ignites a sense of wonder for both kids and adults, as you go with J.M. Barrie and explore his imagination; from boys flying without rigging, to how Tinkerbell becomes conceptualized. So much is done without the use of technology or spectacle yet still yields a spectacular result if you also let your imagination take you.”

the cast of the National tour of Finding Neverland

photo by Denise Trupe

When Bacon was cast as Barrie he conducted a lot of research to get to know who this man was. When the cast was brought together and finalized, the director Nina Walker used a tool to help the performers really sink into their characters.

“Our director, Mia Walker, did an exercise with us called ‘A Character Presentation’. We were given a list of things we were to prepare and present in front of the cast,” Bacon explained. “Questions and statements such as, who you are, what your greatest strengths, my greatest weakness is, and fill in the blank questions like in 5 years I will be…, I am the one who…, and so on. We had to incorporate interests, movements, emotions into this presentation, it was an artistic way to discover who J. M. Barrie is as a human. At surface level, James Matthew Barrie we know was a short man, he died at 77 years old, and he had a wife. But he had a wife who left him for someone that he knew. All of this happens in the musical that shows the reality of that. I started asking myself, how does that affect you as a person? How did that strike him? Going so deep was instrumental to my development of J.M. Barrie.”

By the time the cast arrives in Phoenix, they will have already performed in over 50 cities in 70 days. Mark expressed that even though it sounds cheesy, this has been one of the best casts he's ever worked with. With 26 people who eat, sleep, work, and play together it is as Mark stated, a forced family.

“It's always wild to tour because you don't get a moment away from ‘the office’,” Bacon described. “Everyone has their own way of incorporating themselves into the social aspect of this dynamic. Some people really need their recharge time, others feel recharged by being around their cast! One thing we all continue to do is support each other. We cover tracks when people are out through sickness, text our understudies helpful notes for their tracks before they’re put in shows, train fellow castmates at the gym, and cook for each other! It can be very draining to not have a reprieve from work but one thing that my cast is excellent about is gauging what someone needs and offering the best they have to help satisfy that need.”

Josephine Florence Cooper and Mark Bacon

photo by Denise Trupe

The cast will make the audience feel like they are family as well, with inside jokes, colorful costumes, and sets that transport you from London to Neverland. The process of bringing this show to life and taking it on the road has taught Mark and his fellow castmates the goal that is in mind for them all.

“I am treating tour as boot-camp for Broadway,” Bacon stated passionately. “Not only must you consistently perform well in 8 or 9 shows a week, but you must do that after sitting on a bus for hours, with daily various climates/altitude shifts and an audience reception that also varies. It's a constant checking-in of how you can do your absolute best without being given very many constants. And gosh darn it, is it fun to navigate that! You have to operate at a very high functioning level to stay above all of those hindrances. Also, I'm starting to learn to ask for what I need. There's no need to be the hero yes-man, nor to be the one that never has anything to say. Approaching a situation with a sense of gratitude and just asking what you would like to see happen and see where things go from there. I've really tried to start implementing that in my personal life as well.”

Finding Neverland will be at the Orpheum Theatre from January 10th- January 12th. When asked what he hopes audiences will take away from this performance, Bacon expressed his aspiration for people to find optimism in J.M. Barrie’s struggle and success to create something he believed in.

“My hope specifically for Finding Neverland is that people will identify with this man who is being told no at every corner. And then they see that he changes his way of doing things and that is when things really start moving for him. No risk, no reward. And I think we all long for that sense of finding greatness, it just manifests in different ways.  But I hope that people feel inspired to shake up their daily routine if they feel stuck.  There isn't always a happy ending but as long as you're moving the line, I'd say that's a success!”

CLICK HERE for more information on Finding Neverland, which plays the Orpheum Theatre from January 10-12