How We Faked Flying

Here’s a fun post - with dope receipts - showing the behind-the-scenes of how we made people fly in “Wendy & Peter Pan”.

The truth is: flying actors onstage sounds magical — but the logistics are brutal. We quickly realized that our biggest enemy was height. The theatre had no fly system and very little vertical space, which meant there was no room to safely hang or hide the actors above the stage like in traditional productions.

Nothing works without a ton of smoke and what we called the “smoke wall.” All of it carefully designed to hide our flying mechanisms.

Behind the scenes, we called them “cranes.” There were three of them, each designed with a custom counterweight — because every actor has a different weight, and we had to lift four of them during the show.

Each crane was adjusted to match the performer it was assigned to - a delicate balance of physics, trust, and force.

Here’s a view from backstage - the moment the kids fly off to Neverland. When everything works as it should, the audience doesn’t see the crane. They just see the actors off the ground.

These stunning shots were captured by the brilliant Ale Pinto:

The following is a POV from Ale Pinto operating the crane for Adri Cortez - our very own Wendy. 🧚

Each crane requires two people to operate: one to control the movement, the other to manage lift. Both need to be in sync for safety and timing purposes.

That “clank” you hear just before Wendy takes off? That’s the crew releasing the safety lock — which is why she drops slightly before she flies:

And then… there are the moments when we get a little too excited — and it doesn’t work. 😔

This photo made the rounds in our team chats. It also lived rent-free in Luis Callejas’ head for a while. Flying’s fun - until everyone sees how you’re doing the magic:

Here’s Wendy (Adri Cortez) flying for the first time in rehearsals:

Here’s Peter and Hook battling it out in the final fight. More than nine people were operating the flying system during this scene — all hiding because the audience is seating all around them. You barely see our team. They can’t see anything:

And here’s how we rehearsed it. The hard part isn’t just flying the cranes - it’s making sure they don’t crash into each other, that actors take off and land safely, and that everything returns to its starting position. All of it in the dark.

This is what it feels like:

Why didn’t we use wires? 😊 Because we simply don’t have the height in our theatre. We had five people flying on cranes - and only Peter (Paolo Salinas) used wires, but only for his stage entrances.

This is me, enjoying the rush of blood to the head:

When everything works, the audience gives you great energy, some laughter, and maybe a tear or two.

And honestly - that’s all we need.

None of this would’ve been possible without our incredible engineering and creative teams - the ones who pulled off the impossible with limited space and limited gear. We built flight from scratch and turned constraints into creativity.

More stories soon.