Christian Borle to Play Both Smee and Mr. Darling in NBC's 'Peter Pan Live!'

As a pretty huge Smash fan, and as a guy who generally enjoyed what NBC accomplished with The Sound of Music Live!, I'm pretty stoked to be reporting that Christian Borle has joined the cast of the network's next musical, Peter Pan Live!, in the dual roles of Smee and Mr. Darling.

This is a bit of a departure from the original Broadway production of Peter Pan, which originally aired live on NBC in 1955: in that production, the dual role was for Mr. Darling and Captain Hook, as opposed to Mr. Darling and Smee. However, I have complete confidence in Borle to give us a new, unique version of Smee. After all, it's hard to imagine many people on the cast will be as intimately familiar with the Peter Pan mythos as Tony award winner Borle, who won his Tony for 2012's Peter Pan prequel, Peter and the Starcatcher, in which he played the role of the pirate Black Stache. And not only is Borle well-versed in the tale of Peter Pan, he also has extensive experience in NBC musicals: in addition to two seasons on Smash, Borle also played the role of Max Detweiler on The Sound of Music Live!.

Borle joins a cast that already includes Christopher Walken as Captain Hook, and Allison Williams as Peter Pan, which...eh, still don't know how to feel about that last bit of casting. But hey, Brian Williams got to be a proud papa on the air after the announcement. So we got something adorable out of it, at least.

Peter Pan Live! is scheduled to air on December 4, 2014 on NBC.

Via: Deadline

Credit: NBC