Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Speaker A: I'm flying, flying, flying?
[00:00:06] Speaker B: Look at me way up high suddenly here am I? I'm flying.
[00:00:12] Speaker A: I'm flying, flying, flying, flying?
[00:00:16] Speaker B: I can shore, I can weave, and what's more, I'm not even trying.
[00:00:19] Speaker A: This is Monica Hooper with the what's up?
[00:00:22] Speaker C: Podcast. Today, I am joined by Bailey Frankenberg, who. Who will be one of the actors playing Tiger Lily in the musical production of Peter Pan, coming to the Walton Arts center with eight performances from September 24 to September 29. Frankenberg is Choctaw and a tribal member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. Both an actress and a movement artist, Bailey gets to flex her stage combat skills for this high flying musical. Still the story from the 1950s musical, with beloved songs like I'm flying, I got a crow, I won't grow up in Neverland. The musical has been updated by celebrated playwright Larissa Fasthorse so that all children may imagine seeing Peter Pan fly past their window. Frankenberg joined us today for a quick chat from the road for today's podcast.
[00:01:16] Speaker A: So you are going to be Tiger Lily here in Fayetteville for this new version of Peter Pan. So tell me about Tiger Lily.
[00:01:27] Speaker D: Yes, absolutely. I'll also include that another one of our amazing actors will also be Tiger Lily that week. So the two of us will be switching off. Her name is Shiann Omani. She's Prairie band Pottawatomie, and she's a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation.
And I'm Bailey Frankenberg. And I am Chokshaw and a citizen of the Cherokee Nation.
[00:01:50] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:01:50] Speaker D: All right.
Yeah. Just to give you a little background on who we are. Yeah. So, Tiger Lily.
I love what Larissa Fasthorse, who is our playwright, she came in and revised our script for us. She's the first native american woman to have a play on Broadway, and the work that she did with the production is really amazing. Something that I think is really special is that she used the lore of Neverland to sort of re envision the place of native people in Neverland, because historically, you know, you've kind of just put native people next to fairies and mermaids, and it sort of dehumanized us.
[00:02:37] Speaker A: In a lot of ways.
[00:02:38] Speaker D: And so the new tiger Lily that Larissa has given us, instead of being the daughter of a chief of a stereotypical Plains Indians tribe, now she is the leader of her people and a warrior herself. And so she leads a group of people who are all the last of their people from around the world.
So they're using the magic of Neverland to preserve their culture, since, in Neverland, you never grow old.
Excuse me. And so Tiger Lily is fire and fierce, and she stands up to hook and to Peter. And she is a strong leader presence, which we've never been able to see before.
[00:03:39] Speaker A: I read that you have some very extensive stage combat training. So tell me how you brought that skill to the stage for Peter Pan.
[00:03:49] Speaker D: Oh, yes, yes. So I. There's. Yes, I have a lot. I have some certifications and training. I've been specializing in movement and violence storytelling. I think that being able to tell stories that incorporate violence in a respectful way, physically and emotionally for both actors and the audience, is really important in theater.
And because violence is such a part of life, you know, and fighting and conflict in physical conflict in that way. And I think whenever it's done well, like, it really helps keep people in the story.
And so I've been working on stage combat, and I, you know, sword work and, you know, how to throw a punch and make it look real and, you know, keep people on the edge of their seats while still not being like, oh, maybe that looked a little too real, you know?
So we've been working with our amazing site directors are sortelay Inc.
They're based out of New York City.
They've done a lot of films and Broadway, and so they came in and choreographed amazing fights for us and really cool moments of physical conflict. And we use one of those fights to be the moment where Tiger Lily, Wendy and Peter actually come together for the first time and learn that if they team up, that they could actually take down hook, the top villain.
So it's a really pivotal moment. And then we use another big fight at the end, which is like the last hurrah of everyone coming together, coming together in order to take down the final villain. And I think it's really exciting. We have, you know, we even have some of our kids sword fighting, which is really special to see.
[00:05:50] Speaker A: So there's actually children on stage.
[00:05:53] Speaker D: We do.
[00:05:54] Speaker A: Oh, I do.
[00:05:56] Speaker D: We have technically five. So we've got two.
We have two kids who play Michael and John, and they're amazing. And then we have two other lost boys that also cover Michael and John. And then they play lost boys with really cute antlers, and they're all fantastic. They travel with us. They have guardians with them. They go to school in the day and they do the show at night.
And then our Peter Pan, Nolan Almeida, is actually 17 years old.
[00:06:29] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:06:30] Speaker C: All right.
[00:06:30] Speaker A: And that's a little bit of a change from the original runs, which had women playing Peter Pan, correct?
[00:06:38] Speaker D: Right? Yes. I know that the. I think the creatives really felt, whenever Nolan auditioned, that he brought something so special to the role. And having somebody sing about Neverland and never growing up, being that age, you know, and being, like, being really, really close to who Peter is.
I think it just. I think they went forward with Nolan because it just. He was. He's so good. He's so great, and it changes the perspective on the story.
[00:07:17] Speaker A: So tell me, since we're talking a little bit about the story, how is this the same children's story from 70 years ago? In what ways has it maintained that same old story?
[00:07:34] Speaker D: Yes. Yes.
So we have.
The heart of the show is still there. That has not been removed. You know, you have, and we have. So we're doing the original, the musical. So a lot of people also kind of get us confused with the Disney film, but we are two separate entities. And so in the fifties, we are the Broadway production that was originated by Mary Martin and then later, Kathy Rigby.
So we still have most of the same music and score. We have two fresh new songs, which is really exciting.
And you can come, and you can still expect to see magic and flying and heart and.
Yes. And we have amazing dancing and choreography done by Lauren Litaro.
And then the things that you can expect to see freshly are.
Yeah, the fresh things that you can expect to see are the. Our Wendy and Tiger Lily characters have been written to be. To have more meat to them. Before, Wendy didn't have a song. She just had one little moment to sing. And Wendy sings. Now Tiger Lily sings. There's a moment between the two women having a conversation that didn't exist in the original one. So I think that we're hoping that kids can come and see the show and see more of themselves in this show. In this version, this is a Neverland that is available for everyone coming to see it, which wasn't necessarily the case before.
I think there are a lot of people who felt excluded from the Peter Pan and the Neverland before our production. And so this is the one where any kid can look out their window and see Peter Pan flying by, no matter who they are.
[00:09:41] Speaker A: I'm glad you put it that way. I read in an interview where Larissa Fasthorse said that one of the reasons she had moved it to modern day America for the setting for the darlings was because she wanted any child to look out the window and be able to imagine that Peter Pan was out there.
[00:10:01] Speaker D: Yes. Yes.
[00:10:04] Speaker A: How have you noticed kids reacting to Peter Pan on stage?
[00:10:11] Speaker D: I. We hear cheers and gasps and we especially hear it whenever there's a moment in the show where Peter asks for help in order to save someone, and the audience and the kids just start roaring. And the investment in the helping Peter and this other character is just touching every night.
And then, you know, coming out of our stage door every night, there's a whole line of kids and children, and not even kids and children, like, grown, grown children, too, you know, just thrilled and excited, and, you know, and we'll be, you know, giving our autographs. And I. And I love to ask if people have seen Peter Pan before. And a lot of the kids have never seen Peter Pan before, or they've never been to the theater before. So this is their first theatrical experience, and just seeing them light up and be so excited and then being able to meet everyone is just such a joy and such a gift and an honor.
[00:11:24] Speaker A: I'm curious, when you were a kid, did. Do you ever get to go see Peter Pan, or were you familiar with the Disney version at all?
[00:11:34] Speaker D: I had seen the Disney version, but I will admit that I wasn't the biggest fan of the Disney Peter Pan, but I did see, my high school did Peter Pan, so I had watched the Kathy Rigby version, and so I came onto this production familiar, but I was interested because I was.
They were looking for native actors to portray Tiger Lily and cover Tiger Lily, and I was excited that Larissa was revising it, and they were doing this whole new version. And then I went, this is a Peter Pan that I really, really want to be a part of and to be able to be part of the team that builds this new version and brings it to the public. Such an honor.
But I do remember my first tour that went through Oklahoma City, and I think I saw Beauty and the beast, which also has, you know, magic and being able to sit in the audience and not knowing what to expect at that age and then getting this theatrical experience, like, you know, it changes lives. It really does. It makes people.
Arts really does have that power.
And I think that I'm really excited to be a part of a production that I think is going to move a generation forward.
[00:13:11] Speaker A: I had just a couple more questions. I noticed that since you mentioned Oklahoma, you said you described yourself as an Oklahoma farm girl. So what part of Oklahoma did you grow up in?
[00:13:22] Speaker D: Yes. Yes. My whole family is from a town south of Norman, so, like, south central Oklahoma, but I grew up all over the state and then returning home to my.
My grandparents house. Both my grandparents are from the same town.
And, yeah, I grew up running around, you know, fields and riding on tractors, and I.
It was really, the moving to cities was a big change, but I'm really thankful for kind of my small town upbringing. I think that, you know, I also grew up in the nineties, so it was kind of before the Internet, but I'm really proud of where I'm from, and so it's really nice to be a part of something that's also kind, which is also coming to Oklahoma and surrounding areas. Like, I'm really excited to be. I'm in Arkansas, and, yeah, I just.
It's really cool to know where I'm from and to see where I am now. It's really special.
[00:14:33] Speaker A: And my last question was just about your costume. I noticed that the costumes were designed to pay respect to each actor's cultural heritage. So I'm wondering, how does your costume and your character pay respect to your choctaw and Cherokee heritage?
[00:14:52] Speaker D: Yeah. So our costumes were designed. She's a Broadway designer named Serafina Bush, and she's incredible. She did so much research into every single character who plays an indigenous person in Tiger lilies tribe. So they're all based off of each actor's own heritage. So we have people from east Asia and south Asia and eastern Europe, and so whenever we're all up there, you can see the diversity, and it's so beautiful. My costume, since I'm based off of tribes that are from the southeast, which is now United States, Serafina went with sort of like, an ancient mississippian mound builder culture costume for me, and so she did a lot of research, and she picked a particular place, and she also knows that I'm from Oklahoma, so my costume isn't specifically Cherokee or choctaw, but she wanted to honor the region, but also honor that I'm from Oklahoma.
And so there she went with an ancient mound builder society based in eastern Oklahoma and was inspired by a lot of the designs of that region. Okay.
[00:16:22] Speaker A: All right. And for my final question is, was there anything else that I didn't ask about for this show that you wanted to mention?
[00:16:35] Speaker D: Oh, that's a good question.
Hmm.
I don't know. Yeah.
I feel excited about everything that we've talked about so far, and I'm just. I'm excited for everyone in Fayetteville to come by and see what we've got going on, to see our. You'll be excited to see a lot of things that are familiar, and then I hope everyone's inspired by everything that's new.
[00:17:12] Speaker A: Okay, great. Well, we can't wait to see you fly here in Fayetteville.
[00:17:17] Speaker D: Oh, good.
[00:17:18] Speaker A: I'm really personally looking forward to taking my little boy to this one because he's really not familiar with the story at all.
Oh, yeah. He's just, that's just one he's missed. So I'm excited. He knows who Peter Pan is. He's got, like, the general idea, but, like, he's he's never, he's never seen people actually take flight in front of him. So I'm really happy that he's going to get that chance.
[00:17:48] Speaker D: Oh, I'm so excited. I'm so glad you told that to me.
[00:17:52] Speaker A: All right, well, thank you so much, Bailey, for talking to me today. And we're looking forward to the show.
[00:18:00] Speaker D: Oh, we're so excited. We're looking forward to it.
[00:18:03] Speaker A: You have a good day.
[00:18:04] Speaker D: You too. Thanks, Monica. Bye.
