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Into History.

com. It's 7.30 p.m. on December 27, 1904, backstage at the Duke of York's Theatre in London, England.

Stage hands, costumers, and actors run about, getting the last details in order before opening night of a brand new play a

fairy tale for children called Peter Pan or the boy who wouldn't grow up.

Preparations are still going on right at the last minute.

Sets are being painted and complicated flying harnesses are being perfected.

The play's author, J.N. Berry, stands off to the side, he nervously smoking his pipe.

After writing the play and shepherding it through production for months,

all there's left for him to do now is wait and worry.

Barry has built a reputation as a serious playwright,

but now he's risking it all on this bizarre children's

fantasy.

Barry remembers all too well when the respected and successful theater producer Herbert

Beerbaum Tree read the script and said Barry must be out of his mind.

Those words echo in Barry's ears as the theater doors open and the audience begins to take

their seats.

Gazing out from behind the curtain, Barry notices that this opening night

crowd is mostly adults. His new play has captured the attention of skeptical theater lovers,

stuffy upper-class businessmen and judgmental newspaper critics.

...