Pima Community College students are reimagining "Peter Pan" with "Neverland: The Lost Shadows," an original prequel that shifts the spotlight from Pan to Tiger Lily and the Piccaninny tribe, opening Thursday.

Written by Scottish author J.M. Barrie, “Peter Pan” is known to many as a children’s story about friendship, childhood, adventure and daring feats of courage. There have been many versions over the years, some told from different perspectives or through a different genre.

“We've been writing our own children’s shows for the past four years,” Pima Community College Theater and Dance Department Head Chris Will told Tucson Spotlight. “The first one, we realized it was a story nobody knew, so we slowly started to realize that maybe we should write stories people do know.”

Those familiar with Disney's 1953 film "Peter Pan" will remember its crude caricatures of Native Americans, including the broken English and the dancing around the fire.

“Neverland: The Lost Shadows” aims to reclaim the narrative. A prequel to the original story, it focuses on Tiger Lily and the tribe and uses Peter Pan’s shadow as the conflict of the story arc.

“There are some characters that you’ll know and love, but we wanted to steer away from Peter Pan himself and be able to explore some new characters, and give some old characters new life,” Will said.

In this version, the members of the Piccaninny tribe are not one-note bit characters but lead roles.

The plot takes place before Pan travels to London, when Neverland is locked in a constant battle between the tribe and Hook's pirates. The tribe thrives because of its shadows and the way they help each person, but when a mysterious plague causes everyone, even the pirates, to start losing their shadows, it falls to Tiger Lily and the friends she makes along the way to bring them back to Neverland.

The plot and script were a collaborative effort. Students in a Principles of Dramatic Structure course were given "Peter Pan" as a prompt, watching some of the many adaptations and working together to draft the plot, character arcs and dialogue.

“The original author kept rewriting the story because he wasn’t happy with the actual story,” Will said. “It made it kind of nice to know that we’re reimagining the story as well.”

The one-hour production has no intermission and includes choreographed dance sequences, in part because dancing around the fire is a major characteristic of the tribe in the original story.

Ana Herrera plays the lead role of Tiger Lily. Though it's her first time in a lead part, she said the production has been a welcoming space for her.

“It’s honestly been a really comfortable space to try new things, it’s been amazing,” Herrera said. “The new thing we're doing right now is putting dance into theater without it being a musical. I never thought that would be a thing.”

The play runs Oct. 1 through 4 in the Proscenium Theater, with showings at 7 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and matinee performances at 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

Tickets are available through eventbrite.com. Box office hours are Tuesday through Friday, noon to 5 p.m., and one hour before each performance.

Quentin Agnello is a University of Arizona alum and freelance journalist in Tucson. Contact him at qsagnello@gmail.com.

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