NBC has cast Allison Williams, who plays Marnie on Girls, in the titular role of its live-action Dec. 4 performance of Peter Pan. Williams will star alongside Christopher Walken who will play Captain Hook.
“I have wanted to play Peter Pan since I was about three years old, so this is a dream come true,” Williams said in a statement. “It’s such an honor to be a part of this adventure, and I’m very excited to get to work with this extraordinarily talented team. And besides what could go wrong in a live televised production with simultaneous flying, sword fighting and singing?”
Building on the success of its live The Sound of Music broadcast starring Carrie Underwood—which brought the network some of its best numbers in years—NBC announced two other live musical events for this year: this production of Peter Pan and another of The Music Man.
“We couldn’t be happier that Allison Williams is our Peter Pan,” Robert Greenblatt, the chairman of NBC Entertainment, said in a statement. “She’s a lovely rising star on the award-winning show Girls — where she occasionally shows off her incredible vocal talent — and we think she will bring the perfect blend of ‘boyish’ vulnerability and bravado to save the day against Christopher Walken’s powerful Captain Hook.”
Though some fans on Twitter have questioned why NBC cast a female actress to play the boy who never grew up, Peter Pan has traditionally been played by a woman in the musical (most famously by Mary Martin).
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