History will be made at the Civic Theatre at the opening of Hunter Drama's production of Peter Pan Jr on Thursday, when four actors fly across the stage.
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It's not fairy dust that will lift Peter and the Darling children five metres into the air but a sprinkling of theatre magic.
The play's musical director Ali Hodge said it was the largest number of actors to fly together on Civic's stage. "We wanted to make the childlike imagination come alive," she said.
The theatre school has achieved the special effect with the guidance of Melbourne production company Showtech.
The musical's four child leads Imogen Bamback (Peter Pan), Sabine Cook (Wendy Darling), Jasper Coy (John Darling) and Jack Norman (Michael Darling) attended flying training with the company in Melbourne last month.
Ms Hodge said the machinery required to lift the four children took up about half of the space off stage.
"You have to counterweight the people flying and make sure there's enough cable. Then there's computers and things to control the speeds and winches of all sorts, so its very technical," Ms Hodge said.
"Imogen is wearing the harness the entirety of the show and it's not very comfortable so she's dealt with that really well."
Ms Hodge said there would be flying throughout the show.
"We don't play small," she said.
"We all go to Sydney to see spectacular things but we deserve amazing things in our hometown.
"We're a training institution as well so we want our students to have those experiences so whatever is thrown at them in the big wide world they can take on."
Peter Pan Jr will have 7pm sessions on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, 10.30am sessions on Thursday and Friday, and a 2pm session on Saturday.
Discounted tickets can be purchased through Ticketek using the discount code HOOK40.
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