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One final clap of the hands

Peter Pan lives on, but Cathy Rigby will not be in those elvish shoes after next year. For now, though, she's still flying high.

By JOHN FLEMING
Published October 11, 2005

PREVIEW

Peter Pan opens at 7:30 tonight and runs through Sunday at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center. $31.50-$67.50. Information: 813 229-7827; www.tbpac.org

After approximately 2,600 performances as the boy who won't grow up, Cathy Rigby is on her last tour of Peter Pan.

"I will miss it terribly because it's been a fabulous run for me, but there are other things I want to do," Rigby said in September from Salt Lake City. "It's one of those roles that is so amazingly physically demanding. I would never want to do it halfway. I think it's the best it can be right now, and I don't want it to be anything but that."

Rigby first played Peter in a 1974 production, not long after she retired as an Olympic gymnast. She has appeared in numerous tours of the musical and was nominated for a 1991 Tony Award for her performance. The current tour, which opens tonight at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, will have a Broadway run during the holidays and then wind up next year.

In many ways, Rigby is the ideal Peter because of her ability to do the flying numbers that have always been the show's trademark, even when the role was in the hands of her more earthbound predecessors, Mary Martin and Sandy Duncan.

Rigby gives a lot of credit to flying designer Paul Rubin, who, along with a second stagehand in the wings, manipulates ropes attached to her harness when Peter takes off.

"They are sweating as much as anyone onstage," Rigby said. "Their focus has to be that of somebody working on the balance beam. We're all three in sync. We have to feel what the other is doing. One lifts me up, the other, side to side. They're like puppeteers almost."

Airborne numbers include a ballet, sword fighting and I'm Flying, in which Peter spirits the Darling kids off to Neverland. At the end of the show, Rigby soars out over the audience.

"Everybody should have that kind of curtain call, huh?" she said.

As a competitor in the 1968 and 1972 Olympics, Rigby came along before the onset of Cirque du Soleil, which has brought out the theatrical talents of many a world-class gymnast. She has never had any contact with the French-Canadian company but is a great admirer of its work.

"I love watching them, but at this point, I'm not in Olympic athletic shape to be able to do what they do," she said. "Their form, their ability level, is pretty darn high."

Still, at 52, the 4-foot-11 Rigby is a trim, muscular performer. "I weigh the same as when I started Peter Pan, pretty much, 104, 103 pounds," she said.

How does she keep the weight off?

"The show itself keeps me in shape. It's two hours of a lot of physical activity. And I eat well. In my room I'll have grapes and fruit and water. Being my age, I can't eat hot fudge sundaes and stuff like that. But I'm not fanatical about it."

The flying in Peter Pan is what most people think of, but Rigby seems proudest of her characterization of the quintessential boy. Even her somewhat husky singing voice seems right for the rambunctious sprite who never wants to wear a tie or a serious expression in July.

"More than the athletic side of it, I think the important thing is an attitude in how you play the role," she said. "You try to become as boyish as possible, and that's probably one of the hardest things to do. Boys are so economical in their movement, in some ways, and in their emotions. And then sometimes they're over the top."

She modeled Peter, in part, on her own two sons. She has four grown children, and three of them are in the cast of Peter Pan. Six other family members are also in the company, including Rigby's husband, producer Tom McCoy.

Rigby, who has also starred in Annie Get Your Gun, Seussical and Meet Me in St. Louis, doesn't have firm plans for life after Peter Pan. "I just want to continue in theater," she said. "I'd love to do something original."

-- John Fleming can be reached at 727 893-8716 or fleming@sptimes.com

[Last modified October 10, 2005, 18:47:01]