'Peter and the Starcatcher' sails into Cd'A

Coeur d’Alene Summer Theatre’s season opens Thursday, June 16, when the curtain goes up on “Peter and the Starcatcher.”

Described as a grownup’s prequel to Peter Pan, the show garnered high praise from critics and won multiple awards, including several Tonys, when it opened on Broadway in 2012.

“The most exhilarating Broadway storytelling in decades! You must experience it for yourself,” wrote Ben Brantley, of the New York Times.

The Coeur d’Alene Summer Theatre production will run through July 3 on stage at the Salvation Army Kroc Center, 1765 W. Golf Course Road, Coeur d’Alene.

Showtimes are 7:30 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays with 2 p.m. matinees on Sundays. Ticket prices are $27/child, $42/seniors, $49/adults and can be purchased by visiting www.cdasummertheatre.com or calling (208) 660-2958.

Director Matt Giles said the play offers simple, magical, theatrical storytelling.

“It’s outrageously funny and profoundly moving, all at the same time. And who doesn’t love a good prequel? The story of how an orphan became Peter Pan, a ruthless pirate/poet became Captain Hook, an island in the middle of the sea became Neverland … I love those stories. These are characters with whom we’ve all grown up, and now we see what made them…what crafted their realities,” Giles said.

But the show is about more than Peter Pan, he said.

“It’s about belonging. It’s about finding home. It’s a story that is compelling for adults and children alike,” Giles said.

The play — which was co-produced on Broadway by Coeur d’Alene Summer Theatre’s former director, Laura Little — is based on a series of novels co-written by Pulitzer Prize-winning author and columnist Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson.

The theatrical adaptation tells the story of a young orphan and his mates who 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, containing 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 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.