Neverland Players Bring Kids’ Stories to Life

Being immersed in a community of your peers — mostly 18- to 22-year-olds — is an exciting part of the college experience. But sometimes Grinnell students enjoy interacting with younger kids, too.

Maybe that’s part of the reason that the Neverland Players group has been a fixture on the Grinnell campus for more than two decades. Neverland is a student-run theatre group that works with younger students in the Grinnell community to bring the kids’ stories to life onstage. They put on one production each semester featuring several kid-written skits and even a musical.

“It’s the most fun I’ve had at Grinnell,” says Luca Blankenship ’24, one of the student leaders of the Neverland Players. He’s a theatre, dance, and performance studies major with a film and media studies concentration from Brooklyn, New York.

Blankenship says he sort of stumbled into Neverland when one of his best friends dragged him along to audition. They’ve been involved in the group ever since.

How does the process work? Neverland collaborates with other community groups — such as the Grinnell Arts Council, schools, and preschools — to identify kids who want to participate as writers. “We try to get as wide of breadth of kids as possible,” Blankenship says.

Next, a group of three or four Neverlanders will visit the school or program they’re collaborating with. “We’ll just kind of work with the group of kids there, rotate around, make sure that it’s not in total chaos, and help them write or record [their story],” Blankenship says. Kids who are too young to write down their own stories will sometimes dictate it to one of the Neverlanders.

The Neverlanders adapt the stories for the stage and rehearse their skits for months. “The most rewarding part of the process is always at the very end when we’re doing the shows, and you can just hear the kids’ reactions,” he says. “They’re laughing … then at the very end we ask them to come up and take a bow.

“It’s very much for the kids,” Blankenship says.

He would encourage new Grinnell students to check out the Neverland Players. “It’s a very creative thing,” he says. “It’s a nice outlet.”

But even beyond the rehearsals and performances, the Neverlanders enjoy a tight community and strong friendships. Even when they’re not working on a Neverland show, they enjoy hanging out or making a trip to Dari Barn — Grinnell’s legendary ice cream shop. They also honor a tradition known as Dinnerland. “Which is, as you might imagine, dinner for Neverland,” Blankenship says.

“I love everyone that’s in Neverland. It’s just a really nice space to take a break from your campus job or homework or any of this and just focus on the imagination of kids,” Blankenship says.

“I really like it as a way to take a breath and engage with my inner child.”