It’s time to leave Neverland

Cathy Rigby hangs up her harness after 15 years as Peter Pan

By Joseph Gallivan

The Portland Tribune, May 23, 2006, Updated Oct 30, 2009

When Cathy Rigby unhooks her harness for the last time Sunday she brings to a close her run as the boy who refused to grow up in the musical “Peter Pan.” Former gymnast Rigby has been flying from a wire on and off since 1991, and she’s been loving every minute of her last West Coast swing.

The showbiz trouper is based in Southern California, but it’s not like she’s missing her family: Her daughter, Theresa McCoy, plays Jane, one of the Lost Boys; four other relatives are involved in the production including her hubby, producer Tom McCoy; and she is future mother-in-law to Kent Flemming, the master electrician.

The show itself is the ultimate in family entertainment, combining the bizarre world of children’s fantasy with the sentimental nostalgia adults have for childhood.

Audiences, she says, consist of people ages 5 to 80. “You get a lot of people who saw it as a child, and now they’re bringing their kids,” says Rigby, 53, by telephone. Then there’s the subset of dads who are there reluctantly but end up blubbering or cheering. “I love it when the big kids have fun,” Rigby says.

The story is of Peter Pan, a boy who refuses to grow up. He has one emotion, gladness, repressing every other emotion. He hangs around in Neverland with the Lost Boys, fighting the pirate Captain Hook.

Peter invites Wendy Darling to Neverland to be a mother for the Lost Boys. Wendy’s brothers come, too, and their adventures include the near death of the fairy Tinker Bell. In the end Wendy goes home to grow up, but Peter stays in Neverland.

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