Cathy Rigby joined Sandy Duncan and Allison Williams on the "Today" show to talk about what it's like to fly – as in "Peter Pan" – in anticipation of NBC's upcoming live production of the children's classic on Dec. 4.
Williams, 26, the daughter of "NBC Nightly News" anchor Brian Williams and co-star of HBO series "Girls," will play the title role in "NBC Peter Pan Live" opposite Christopher Walken's Captain Hook,
according to Us Weekly.
Rigby, 61, a former Olympic gymnast, played Peter Pan for more than 40 years in more than 3,000 performances starting in 1974, according to Us Weekly. She admitted to "Today" that she could not explain why women have mostly played the role of the boy who refused to grow up.
"I think it’s more of an androgynous, nonsexual, sort of spirit," Rigby said. "We don’t know the answer."
Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, who produced the NBC drama "Smash," will be the executive producers for "NBC Peter Pan Live,"
according to Broadway World.com. Zadan and Meron have 103 Emmy Award nominations to their credit and have done stage to screen musical adaptation of "Hairspray" and television adaptation of "Cinderella."
Peter Pan became Rigby's signature character on stage as she toured the country and formed her own production company.
That company ran into some legal trouble last year,
according to the Los Angeles Times, when a composer sued her for millions of dollars, claiming he had not been properly paid for his work on a production of "Peter Pan" that her company presented at the La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts in 2004 and on a national tour.
The Times reported that Craig Barna charged that the company, McCoy Rigby Entertainment, breached its contract with him and has continued to use music he created and orchestrated for the show without properly paying him, according to court papers reviewed by the newspaper.
Barna charged that McCoy Rigby Entertainment wrongly licensed his work to other theater companies, and that conductor Keith Levenson, who worked on "Peter Pan," has passed off the music and orchestrations as his own. He's seeking $2 million.
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