When the lights go down at the ANZA Club for Cameron Fatkin's latest epic neo-burlesque show, those in attendance will be transported to Neverland, New Orleans' hottest gentlemen's club, during Mardi Gras.
Lost Girls of Neverland is a contemporary musical comedy ode to the classic tale of Peter Pan. Audience members will be guests at the "club," giving them the perfect viewpoint to watch the all-original retelling unfold.
"It's about a girl named Wendy Darling who basically comes to New Orleans to find herself," says Fatkin, who wrote and produced the show for Concrete Vertigo Productions. "She is a naïve young girl and she basically gets taken under [the wing] of this troupe of women who run a gentleman's club called Neverland."
Run by Mistress Pan, Neverland is engaged in a rivalry with a similar club across town called the Mermaid Lagoon, owned by none other than Madame Hook.
"It's all about Wendy coming into her own and her friends that she makes along the way and how they contribute to her [journey]," Fatkin says. "They have their own problems and everybody's basically ended up in Neverland as a lost girl because they are in their lives very lost and don't know where they're going, that sort of thing. It is a very, very funny show, but it also has a couple serious themes in it as well."
For Lost Girls of Neverland, Fatkin drew upon the works of Scottish novelist and playwright J.M. Barrie and the Walt Disney film version of Peter Pan. "This is like my love letter to Disney, but for adults-for the people that grew up with it that are now older."
The newly renovated ANZA Club provides a unique space for the show, which runs until March 3, as audience members will be seated at individual tables. "It's going to be like they're sitting in the club that is Neverland, so they're going to be fully immersed in the show."
Lost Girls of Neverland follows Fatkin's debut burlesque show, Ruby Red Burlesque, a sexually charged retelling of The Wizard of Oz, mounted in October 2010 at the PAL Theatre. The production was sold out for its entire two-week run.
Fatkin decided to make Lost Girls a bigger production. The show's two-act story-line is two hours in duration and incorporates multiple costume changes, singing and dancing as well as stage combat.
"It's bigger in the sense that we have a bigger budget and we have more ideas," Fatkin says, adding that part of his inspiration for the show came from pop concerts. He spent the last year travelling around North America and to Southeast Asia and Australia, and made a point of seeing as many concerts as possible, including one with Kylie Minogue.
"I thought her spectacle of a show was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen," he says.
For both of his shows, Fatkin has drawn much of the cast and crew talent from Capilano University's alumni pool. He's a Cap film program grad and many of those involved are graduates of the school's musical theatre program, including Sable Strub (Wendy), Jacqueline Breakwell (Tinkerbell), and Allison Fligg (Jane). Lost Girls is being directed by Maddison Popov (Point B Theatre's Reefer Madness).
Using a burlesque base, Lost Girls of Neverland gives local actors, typically working in more traditional theatre, an opportunity to play a new kind of role, says Fatkin.
"It's just one of those shows. It's got the sexy, it's got the story and I don't think there's any other show like it in the city right now."
For tickets and show schedule, visit brownpapertickets.com.
