For Hannah Janowicz, "Peter and the Starcatcher" was love at first sight.

"I fell in love with this show after seeing a professional production of it in 2015. I was completely confused during Act 1, couldn't stop laughing during Act 2 and left the theater crying," she said. "Any show that can achieve that in under two hours is pretty impressive."

The Carmel resident portrays Molly in the Carmel Community Players' production of "Peter and the Starcatcher" Nov. 15-24 at The Cat, 254 Veterans Way, in Carmel.

"Though the play is a prequel to the story of 'Peter Pan,' it holds its own and has the bones of a standalone story," Janowicz said. "Audiences shouldn't expect to meet Tinkerbell, Tiger Lily and Captain Hook right away, but rather embark on a different adventure with new names and faces while the contents of a familiar story slowly fold into place."

Janowicz appreciates that the play has a bare-bones storytelling approach, where actors must create the world and help the audience with their imagination.

"I also admire the complexities of the child characters like Molly and the Boy," she said. "No one is one-note, and the character layers reveal themselves over time."

Janowicz said the humor is top notch.

"Adults and kids alike can enjoy the adventure, playful chaos and pop culture references that may or may not be time-period accurate," she said.

Indianapolis resident Austin Uebelhor portrays the villain, Black Stache.

"Black Stache is a very flamboyant, over-the-top character, which means I get to have fun being as ridiculous as possible," Uebelhor said. "Often, you have to be careful with overacting as it may affect the character's believability, but in this case, it works perfectly for my poetic pirate. While a lot of shows have antagonists, there are far fewer that have truly villainous individuals. I love the chance to dig into my bad side, as it's not something I get to do often. It's especially fun with a villain as extravagant as Black Stache, who's as ridiculous as he is evil."

Carmel resident Lori Raffel is the director.

"It is the first time CCP is doing the show, and for me, the challenges are the songs," Raffel said. "There are only a couple of short pirate songs, but musicals are not

my forte, so I asked Tanya Haas to help with music, Elizabeth Ruddell to help with costumes, my boss at (Prime Life Enrichment) Cindy Schembre to do the choreography and they all agreed to help on a very short notice."

For tickets, visit carmelplayers.org.

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