Fans of Peter Pan aren’t going to want to miss the stage adaptation of the book Peter and the Starcatcher by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson, presented July 31-August 10 at the Wagon Wheel Theatre in Warsaw.

Peter and the Starcatcher serves as a prequel to J.M. Barrie’s Peter and Wendy and provides the backstory for the characters of Peter Pan, Mrs. Darling, Tinker Bell, and Hook. A magical evening of madcap fun and the winner of five Tony Awards during its run on Broadway, this show will have you “hooked” as it gives valuable insight into the century-old story of how a miserable orphan comes to be “The Boy Who Would Not Grow Up.”

A young orphan and his mates are shipped off from Victorian England to a distant island ruled by the evil King Zarboff. They know nothing of the mysterious trunk in the captain’s cabin which contains a precious, otherworldly cargo. At sea, the boys are discovered by a precocious young girl named Molly, a Starcatcher-in-training who realizes that the trunk’s precious cargo is starstuff, a celestial substance so powerful that it must never fall into the wrong hands.

When the ship is taken over by pirates, led by the fearsome Black Stache, a villain determined to claim the trunk and its treasure for his own, the journey quickly becomes a thrilling adventure. The New York Times called it “the most exhilarating storytelling in decades.”