Last year, NBC announced, after the astounding success of its first live televised musical special in decades, "The Sound of Music Live!", that it will air another live televised special in December, Peter Pan Live! (What the hell is up with the exclamation points?). Usually the title role in the Broadway musicals and TV specials are played by a woman; the most famous being Mary Martin, who won a Tony award for the musical and the hearts of millions (65 to be exact) in the NBC special in 1955, '56 and '65. This announcement left questions and wonder as to who will play the amazing boy wonder of Neverland. That is until now. Today, NBC made the announcement that Girls star Alison Williams will play the title role in the live special. She is also a classically-trained singer and has videos on YT that have millions of views each. Here's one of them below.
Damn, she's got pipes.
Oh yeah, she also happens to be the daughter of NBC Nightly News anchor and managing editor Brian Williams.
Soon after the news hit the web, people immediately threw the nepotism card because of the Peacock keeping it in the family for the role choice, writing bitingly hilarious comments about it, saying that she's Brian Williams' daughter and saying "Nepotism!" and crap. And there were a lot of them.
Here are some of the comments at this article on Deadline:
http://www.deadline.com/2014/07/allison-williams-cast-as-peter-pan-in-nbc-musical-peter-pan-live/#comments
And some at TVLine.com: http://tvline.com/2014/07/30/nbc-peter-pan-cast-allison-williams-girls/#commentform-536386
Hey, I don't blame the people for the accusations of nepotism. They have a really good point. Remember, Brian Williams IS her father, he does work at NBC News, and he may have put in a word in to for the producers to consider her. So, it does make sense to say so. But come on, people, the network execs didn't make the decision (they're probably too busy fixing it's messed up schedule); the show's producers did. Even if they they did, at least they made a great, smart choice! I don't care what the other people think or say and I don't find this a bad idea; she's a very talented actress. I admit, I don't watch Girls (I find it annoyingly overrated) but I've heard her name. And I have never heard her music before, but I regret that. This girl can sing! Just listen to her. Her voice sent shivers and chills to my spine (among other places), and it'll send some to yours, too. Here's some more examples:
Also this ultra-cute picture she later shared of her 3-year-old self dressed as Peter Pan is another great indication. Just look at the hair!
If she has an album out, I'd buy that in seconds, and if she's in anything else, I'll support it from the start. Whether it be comedy, drama, musical, hell, even sex tape--I support it. (okay, maybe not sex tape; she's better than this). She's just that talented. I wish her the best as Peter Pan, the producers for making this as fun, amazing (and safe) as possible, and NBC as much of the best in the world for catching lightning in a bottle for a second time. Only God knows how many people have watched it before the show airs, but everyone already has 3 million on lock.
I'd also want to point out that I always wonder why a woman always plays Peter Pan and not a dude, and why the producers of the original Broadway musical did this choice. I'd want to look further into that, but I'm too lazy to at this point.
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