One superstar, two or three tv favorites with theatre experience, and a handful of theatre folk to round it out. That was the recipe last year at least.
The network is going to follow the exact same plan-one big name as Peter and pepper the supporting cast with Broadway vets who can really sing and dance and are comfortable live. They need to not break the bank. They will need to find a young man with large appeal and who can really sing live-being able to sing live might be a tall order with all the autotuning going on.
"The sexual energy between the mother and son really concerns me!"-random woman behind me at Next to Normal
"I want to meet him after and bang him!"-random woman who exposed her breasts at Rock of Ages, referring to James Carpinello
I do not think they will find their superstar in Peter. I think they will find a popular talent who appeals to a wide audience, but that is much different from a "superstar." As many have suggested, Captain Hook is the PERFECT opportunity for a A-list superstar such as Hugh Jackman.
@Adam.. so sorry. It might be right under my nose. But I don't see anywhere where it says they want a boy. I googled and all it says is that one of the producers joked about casting Miley Cyrus. Can you throw me a link to where you read that? Probably here somewhere.. but I can't find it.
Dame- here is a link to the article in the Hollywood Reporter in which Greenblatt says the role of Peter will "likely" go to a male actor. But other press at the same time indicated that no actors had yet been approached so I'd say anything is possible and the possibility of a female star (of which there are many more viable options) shouldn't be ruled out yet...
Here is a link to an article that came out at the same time in which Greenblatt seems to be very conscious not to comment either way on the gender that will be cast in the role. I think NBC is likely exploring all options...
To me it seemed like they wanted to cast a boy to mix it up but hadn't definitively decided.
The more I think about it I really think they'll cast a woman in the end. Casting Peter as a boy (with this material at least) seems like something of a risk to me, and I would imagine they would play it as safe as possible.
I mentioned this in another thread, but I think casting a male as Peter in this specific musical adaptation would potentially be really problematic- it was specifically written for a woman and I think a lot of the musical material would come across as rather fey if sung by anything other than a woman or a very young boy and there aren't many of those that are big names out there.
If NBC were interested in casting a man as Peter Pan I think they would be wise to go with a different musical adaptation.