In a first for Broadway, the role of Peter Pan is now being played by an actor and not by an actress, as had been the tradition from Maude Adams (1905) to Cathy Rigby (1999). The actor is 25-year-old Adam Chanler-Berat (right, center, in striped shirt), and the new play is Peter and the Starcatcher, a prequel to the J.M. Barrie classic, which imagines the orphaned hero’s life before he became The Boy Who Would Not Grow Up. “It’s exciting playing Peter because in a lot of ways I’m experiencing the birth of a person,” Chanler-Berat says. “He gets a name and tries to find his way home. That’s a thrilling journey to go on.” Having a man play the part introduces another first to the story: a sexual charge between the teenage Peter and Molly, the only female character in this version. As to Chanler-Berat’s first encounter with the myth of Peter Pan, it was in middle school, where he was happily cast as the villain, Captain Hook. “Pan was played by a girl, of course.”

» Peter and the Starcatcher, Brooks Atkinson Theatre, 256 W. 47th St., 877.250.2929

At the top of the second act of the Broadway musical Evita, Elena Roger (left), as Eva Perón, makes her entrance to sing “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina,” one of the show’s most iconic songs by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice. The effect is breathtaking, not least because of the costume she is wearing. “The moment represents Eva’s debut as the first lady of Argentina, and it was important dramatically to the piece that we told—visually, using this beautiful gown—the fullest picture of her dramatic, and total, ascendancy above her people,” explains Costume Designer Christopher Oram. Patterned after a dress made by Perón’s favorite couturier, Christian Dior, the costume is made of cloth of silver (lined with gold-shot brocade), silk bobbinet, silk metal organza, crystal shear and approximately 30 yards of silk tulle. Thousands of Swarovski crystal elements, “all hand-applied,” cover it. To create the showstopper took 200 hours, with no dressmaking shortcuts allowed, according to Oram.

» Evita, Marquis Theatre, W. 46th St., btw Broadway & Eighth Ave., 877.250.2929

Actor John Lithgow is no stranger to the written word. By his own reckoning, he has played three columnists onstage, including his current stint as Joseph Alsop in David Auburn’s The Columnist (right) on Broadway. He has also penned a probing memoir, Drama: An Actor’s Education (Harper, 2011), in which he elucidates the fascination theater holds for humans, himself included. “Simply put, we want a good story,” he writes. “We want emotional exercise. … We want to feel pity, fear, anger, hilarity, and joy. … We want to be persuaded that we are intensely feeling beings.” The Columnist so moved Lithgow at first reading, he knew he had to perform in it. “It goes so deeply into this character and his relationships,” he says. “It’s about journalism and politics 50 to 60 years ago. It’s about how President Kennedy’s assassination affected all of us. But most intensely, it’s about this person and the crisis in his life. It’s about secrets and lies, and that’s always a great subject for theater.”

» The Columnist, Manhattan Theatre Club, Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, 261 W. 47th St., 212.239.6200