Neverland Comes Full Circle

Grinnell College has graduated a number of alumni in recent years who work in theatre. One alum, whose theatrical work is accomplished and affecting, noticed that her Grinnellian friends were doing great, world-improving things such as teaching or helping foreign-born orphans get adopted by American parents. While her peers were doing inspirational work that was inarguably good and useful, she feared she was merely trying to get better at pretending. 

Such career anxiety is not uncommon. Fortunately, there is an independent theatrical institution that began at Grinnell nearly 10 years ago that provides an excellent example of theatre that helps. That’s why it started, and since then it has expanded to help more people in Grinnellian ways.

Neverland Players’ approach to theatre is one reason for the popularity of the performance group based on Grinnell’s campus. Its members turn stories penned — or crayoned — by students at Davis Elementary School in Grinnell into frequently moving, always-funny skits. For as lighthearted and happy-go-lucky as it is, Neverland Players took to the stage during a dark period in the College’s recent history. 

Growth from Tragedy

Kat Henry ’06, founder of Neverland Players, was a first-year student during the 2002–03 school year. That year, three Grinnell College students committed suicide. The pall these deaths cast over the College stood in stark contrast to Kat’s vision of Grinnell as an “awesome place full of bright, down-to-earth people.” She also was dealing with the death of both a close family member and a pet. 

Although she had always loved theatre, Kat’s options for theatre department productions then weren’t exactly uplifting. She performed in Chekov’s Uncle Vanya, which was produced in the fall semester. She took on the challenging dramatic role of Kate Mundy in Brian Friel’s Dancing at Lughnasa in the spring. Both were well-executed productions, but neither seemed to break the bleakness that hung over the College and its residents. 

One night, she was talking to a friend and telling him she hoped the theatre department would put on a musical or a comedy, and she remembered seeing Griffin’s Tale, Northwestern University’s children’s repertory theatre company, with him. The show served as a blueprint for the Neverland format and fit the bill as a theatre outlet that could provide a little levity. Kat’s first year was especially heavy, but every Grinnellian can admit the need to “temper the heavy with the trivial.”

By the fall of 2004, Kat had coordinated with the principal of Davis Elementary, arranged a modest budget for costumes (which are still in use today) and obtained construction materials for a simple backdrop. The final piece she needed to complete her vision was a keyboardist. Jisoo “Ben” Kim ’07 was a perfect fit. “His love for the children’s stories was unwavering. He laughed at every scene, every time, and he really meant it,” Henry says.

The Neverland Experience

The process of creating a Neverland performance is intense, but stress-reducing. The performers bring stories written by elementary school students to life through a rigorous improvisational process. Story content ranges “from purple cows to planets filled with root beer or even the evil literary designs of the conniving ‘lidrarian’ (an original spelling mistake from a Davis student that was lovingly readapted 

as the linguistically misunderstood villain),” says Lexy Leuszler ’12. Sometimes the stories are used as a framework, but other times they are reproduced verbatim. The performers spend three hours each night developing a performance from a handful of stories, sometimes creating mash-ups, and always including one epic musical skit. As Leuszler describes it, “Rehearsals consist of long periods of pretend bent on crafting the liveliest interpretation of the author’s ingenious characters.”

Kat Henry shepherded the Neverland Players for her remaining years at Grinnell, but after she graduated, the program struggled and then went dark for a couple semesters. Barbara Monaco ’10 and Mitch Avitt ’10 took it upon themselves to resurrect the Neverland Players. Says Monaco, “Mitch and I loved Neverland; it was something that brought us a lot of joy and made us significantly closer friends, and we also made lots of close friends. We wanted to do something for Neverland since it had done so much for us.” 

They had both auditioned and performed in a Neverland show their first year at Grinnell. Avitt was similarly resolute. “The semester that Barbara and I found it wasn’t happening, neither of us had a question of whether to revive it or not, we just knew that we would,” he says.  “We put our heart and soul into the group. I would argue that we got our heart and soul back out of the group freshly polished and reinvigorated.” 

Julianne Thompson ’15 and Phoebe Mogharei ’16, the directors of this fall’s Neverland Players show on campus, also joined Neverland early in their Grinnell careers. They are perpetuating both the process and the ethos they discovered upon joining the group. “Once you’re in Neverland, you’re always in Neverland,” Mogharei says. They stressed that the audition process was fun and exciting, which is a departure from most auditions. Typically they’re nerve-wracking and potentially ego-shattering. Lexy Leuszler recalls her audition: “I was asked to read as a fish out of water, a lisping rabbit, and a witch — easily the most enjoyable audition one can take part in.”

To the Community and Beyond

In 2010, the Neverland Players struck up a partnership with the Grinnell Area Arts Council. The Neverland leadership submitted a proposal to the arts council to become the new children’s theatre of Grinnell, replacing the Missoula Children’s Theatre, which previously had a residence in Grinnell supported by the council, with a more cost-effective model. Groups of elementary and middle school students meet for a weeklong camp consisting of writing and performing. The program and its participants are called Neverland Jr. 

“We made sure each student had a significant role as a writer, actor, and collaborator,” says Leuszler, who co-founded Neverland Jr. with Amanda Borson ’13. In addition to teaching theatre techniques and writing skills, the College students who participate in Neverland Jr. foster strong relationships with children and families in the community. “We also had a long-term relationship with many Grinnell-area elementary students who were thrilled to create their own Neverland after having supported us year after year with stories and fandom,” Leuszler says.

The Neverland Players first ventured outside Grinnell in 2012, working with stories from students at Highlands Elementary in Edina, Minn., which performer Teddy Hoffman ’14 had attended. The group performed the new works at the Minnesota Fringe Festival in Minneapolis. Their show was the 10th-best-selling show per seating capacity, the fourth highest-rated show, and touted as “Best kids’ show of the Fringe!” Barbara Monaco, who lived in the area at the time, made the programs and housed performers, and Kat Henry went to the opening performance and voiced her approval.

Full Circle

The most recent series of performances outside Grinnell came over the summer and brought the Neverland Players full circle. This year, six Grinnell alumni — Dane Haiken ’12, Erik Jarvis ’12, Ben Tape ’12, Anika Manzoor ’13, Leuszler, and Borson — took Neverland to the Chicago Fringe Festival. Their stories came from a group of fourth- and fifth-graders at Pulaski International School in the Bucktown neighborhood of Chicago. Kat Henry, who gathered the stories, teaches a special education class there. 

The stories included in the show ranged from a noir skit about a candy-stealing bully to a Super Mario Brothers rap. It was a very musical show, with parodies of “Mirrors” by Justin Timberlake, “At Last” by Etta James, “Get Lucky” by Daft Punk, and “Creep” by Radiohead. Tape, who sang the “Creep” parody, says, “Lyrics-wise, there’s just something great about taking a song the BBC refused to play because it was too depressing (‘Creep’) and turning it into the Tooth Fairy’s lament about not being able to see the [Chicago] Bulls play.”

The Neverland Players performed at the Pulaski school as well. Henry arranged three back-to-back assemblies during which Neverlanders performed the students’ stories for first- through sixth-graders. “The chance to honor the authors, sitting in their own school among their teachers and young siblings and older siblings, while they were cheered on by their classmates reinforced for us why Neverland is important,” Borson says. The authors were even invited to take a bow onstage at the end and were thrilled to do so. “Not everyone would want to be asked to ‘write about anything that comes to mind,’ but for some, this seems to be the perfect point of entry into something awesome,” Henry says. The alumni Neverlanders unanimously agreed that performing for the authors and their classmates was the high point of their Chicago experience.

Now the alumni Neverland group is looking to develop an infrastructure for Neverland in Chicago that resembles a nonprofit, education-based company. Kat Henry has expressed a desire to collaborate with Neverland Jr. to start a program with them. 

The creation and progression of the Neverland Players is characteristically Grinnellian. It began as a therapeutic response to tragedy and continues to function for the betterment of all involved — authors, actors, and audience. Neverland serves as a validation of the importance of theatre. It is a highly practical, direct, interactive means of social improvement.