A Childhood Dream Realized

Last night I was more excited than I've ever been to head out to downtown Cincy to the Aronoff Theatre. Cathy Rigby is in town for one week only reprising her role as Peter Pan. As this poster and all of the promotional material for the show states, "Cathy Rigby is Peter Pan" and after what I saw last night...I believe it!

This show was amazing. Having just turned 60 last year, you'd never know it from the flying, leaping, jumping and gymnastics you'd expect from this Olympic gold medalist 40+ years ago. But she can still play this role...and do it better than anyone else.

I found this photo on a Google image search, but it's from my favorite scene where Rigby shows off her percussion skills too. "Wow" was all I could say.

How is this "A Childhood Dream Realized"? Well, it wasn't exactly my dream...it was Abbey's.

You see, many years ago when we still lived in Indianapolis, when Abbey was about six or seven, she borrowed from the library a VHS tape of Cathy Rigby in this same production...and that was the first musical that ignited Abbey's love for all things Broadway and show tunes. It's become a passion of hers...thus the reason we volunteer at the Aronoff to begin with.

She didn't act that excited when we were on our way, but I think my enthusiasm was just masking hers. I even made her stand outside for the pre-show...mostly because it was her turn to do so...but now I see how much more magical it was for her not to see the cast on stage in street clothes and the set strike and fight scene rehearsal like I did. After the first act, her comments were something like, 'This is so cool. I feel like it's part of my childhood.' I'm probably not anywhere close in quoting her...I was too overwhelmed by the experience to take it all in.

So while her tastes have matured to include much more adult musicals like West Side Story, Wicked, Phantom of the Opera and Les Miserables'...last night felt like a return to the beginning...the "one that started it all". And even though my little girl has grown up...Peter Pan hasn't and still remains the youthful idealism that we all long for sometimes.