Tony Award nominee Kelli O’Hara will be joining Allison Williams, Christopher Walken, and Christian Borle in NBC’s live production of Peter Pan. Peter Pan Live! will air on December 4, 2014 with Williams tackling the title role, O’Hara will play Mrs. Darling, Borle is Smee & George Darling, and Walken is on board to play Captain Hook.
“Kelli O’Hara is Broadway royalty, a musical star at the top of her game,” said Robert Greenblatt, Chairman, NBC Entertainment. “She will be perfect as the regal mother of the Darling children, and we look forward to her rendition of the beautiful lullaby ‘Tender Shepherd.’”
Rob Ashford (The Sound of Music Live!) is directing and 10 time Emmy winner Glenn Weiss is helming the live production. Craig Zadan and Neil Meron will executive produce, and Emmy nominee David Chase is the musical director. Derek McLane is the production designer, Catherine Zuber is the costume designer, and Robert A. Dickinson is the lighting designer.
Kelli O’Hara’s Profile [Courtesy of NBC]
Two of O’Hara’s five Tony nominees have come in the last three years — best performance by a leading actress in a musical for both The Bridges of Madison County (2014) and Nice Work If You Can Get It (2012). Her other Tony nominees are for the musicals South Pacific (2008), The Pajama Game (2006) and The Light in the Piazza (2005).
For her work in The Bridges of Madison County, The New York Times said of O’Hara, “She confirms her position as one of the most exquisitely expressive stars in musical theater.” The New York Daily News says O’Hara “gives a performance of rare and radiant grace.”
She was also nominated for an Outer Critics Circle Award for each of those productions, as well as a Drama Desk Award for all previously mentioned shows, except The Light in the Piazza.
O’Hara’s other Broadway productions include Follies, Sweet Smell of Success: The Musical and Jekyll & Hyde.
To showcase her incredible vocal talents, O’Hara is set to make her opera debut Dec. 31 at the Metropolitan Opera in New York’s Lincoln Center, co-starring with Renee Fleming in a production of The Merry Widow. In spring 2015, she will return to Broadway in the revival of the classic 1951 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The King and I, starring Ken Watanabe.
-By Rebecca Murray
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