Directed by Stephen Terrell, the show combines just the right amount of charm and humor to enchant its audience along the well-known journey to Neverland.

Gail Bianchi stars as Peter Pan, and, although she resembles Ellen DeGeneres wearing tights and green leaves, Bianchi's Pan makes us believe in the magic of a world where little boys never grow up and adventure rules supreme.

The part was made famous by Mary Martin in the Broadway and television versions, but Bianchi brings a more convincingly boyish quality to the part. Where Martin's Peter Pan likely would have been picked on at recess, Bianchi's depiction is the kind of boy who builds forts and fearlessly plunges into mud.

On the surface, "Peter Pan" is a children's tale set on an island playground of orphans, pirates and Indians. It would be easy to dismiss the story as that if it weren't for the sincerity and strength of Bianchi's and her cast mates' performances.

Looking past the vibrant set, which springs forward like a pop-up book, and the fanciful plot, audiences can't help but feel that something deeper lies beneath the fantasy. At the heart of the show, Bianchi sings the lullaby "Distant Melody," and for a moment we peer into the pain and beauty of a boy's abandoned past.

Pan's nemesis, Captain Hook, is played by Theatre in the Park's founder and executive director Ira David Wood III, who many know as Scrooge in that company's annual "A Christmas Carol."

Like an 18th-century French courtier pretending at piracy, Wood's Hook is more fop than villain, which works to the production's benefit. Some of the greatest laughs are in reaction to Wood's prancelike dancing and undulating accent.

But what would "Peter Pan" be without the children populating its cast? The Lost Boys is a motley crew of elementary and middle school boys parading around the stage like a pack of mildly behaved animals. The cutest of the cute is Zachary Blake Hylan as Michael Darling, the teddy bear-clinging little brother of John and Wendy.

All three Darling children join Peter in the air for the show's greatest technical illusion and most magical moment: the flying.

Children in the audience gleefully gasp as various characters soar above the stage, while parents in the house hold their breaths to see 8-year-old Hylan hoisted high. The spell is made complete at the show's conclusion when Bianchi swings out from the stage, dusting the audience in a shower of purple and green glitter.

Escaping to Neverland is like going away to summer camp. Amid the tight-knit hoards of children banded together in an endless game to undermine adults, there is perpetually the sense that, if it were possible, this sort of happiness should be made to last forever.

N.C. Theatre's summer musical production promises that if you let it, "Peter Pan" will fill two hours of your life with as much youth and joy as you can take.

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