In 2006, Leslie Noel Hansen was just 25 years old and thriving within the Bay Area music scene, teaching singing lessons, dreaming of Broadway and preparing to move to New York.
That all modified when she learned that Steffen Ryge, one among the Lafayette teenagers Noel Hansen had taught, had died in a automotive accident. The Acalanes High senior played the role of Peter Pan in Noel Hansen's original musical “Wish Upon a Star,” staged by local teenagers who donated the weekend's proceeds, about $20,000, to UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital in Oakland .
“It was a very quirky, collaborative and fun project with me and a few teenagers who wanted to do something special,” she says.
The troupe then performed the show for young patients on the hospital and had planned to placed on one other performance before Ryge left for school. That day never got here.
At the time, Noel Hansen was set to play Christine in a touring production of Broadway's “Phantom of the Opera” after training with Franc D'Ambrosio, who played the Phantom within the Tony Award-winning musical for greater than six years. When she was booked to perform at Ryge's memorial service and open a concert for D'Ambrosio the identical day, the distraught Noel Hansen realized she couldn't leave this community.
So she began that Peter Pan Foundationwhich provides mentoring, performance and philanthropic opportunities and inspiration to young musicians and actors – a brand new generation of Peter Pans.
“There are people who need music for much more than just entertainment,” she says. “You need it for hope, health and joy. I want to show children that they can change the world through their talents.”
She had actually seen the facility of those hospital performances for the young patients, but additionally for the singers who bring joy and hope while giving back.
Noel Hansen was a young patient herself and suffered sudden paralysis from Guillain-Barre syndrome on the age of 17. It was a scary time, she remembers. At one point, doctors expressed surprise that the paralysis had not spread to her lungs, which was what had happened strengthened by years of music training. They told her that singing probably saved her life. The memory stayed along with her: If singing had saved her life, then perhaps it could help other young people in powerful ways, too.
More than 20 years later, musical kids of all ages still gather to rehearse, brainstorm and hang around at The Treehouse, the nonprofit's Lafayette home. They host annual profit performances of “Wish Upon a Star,” volunteer as hospital visitors and performers, sing at monthly open mic cabaret nights and take part in a teen leadership council called the Bay Area Magic Makers.
The Peter Pan Foundation helped William familiarize himself with the audition process, says his mother, Jiin Son, while ensuring a theatrical atmosphere that was more inclusive than competitive. William has worked with a wide range of theater, dance and music programs within the East Bay, she says, but as he performs in venues across the country, it’s the inspiration's cabaret nights that he misses essentially the most.
“I have been placed in unique spotlight positions where I can highlight the beauty of American Sign Language alongside the wonderful voices of the Peter Pan Foundation,” says Wilder. “I was able to be a different Disney character while also embracing and acknowledging my deaf identity.”
And for Justin Campo, who joined the inspiration a decade ago when the then-12-year-old's cancer was in remission, the inspiration provided a option to share the enjoyment others brought him during his hospital stays.
“I was visited by characters and was able to watch shows in the hospital,” he says, “and just a few years later I went there dressed as princes, Peter Pan and superheroes.”
Today he uses the leadership and social skills he learned through the inspiration at college, at work and in his relationships. What keeps him coming back as an adult, he says, is that “we don’t just put on shows. It feels family.”
Campo will play Peter Pan this 12 months.Wish for a star,” which hits the stage over Memorial Day weekend with a musical program that features songs from Disney’s 2023 “Wish.”
“It’s a collection of all the Disney characters and songs you know and love,” says Campo. “It’s just a warm embrace of a show.”
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