Names and faces

• NBC has picked its Peter Pan: Girls star Allison Williams. The network announced Wednesday that Williams will play the boy who refused to grow up in NBC's new staging of Peter Pan Live. The live telecast will air Dec. 4. The 26-year-old actress-comedian plays Marnie Michaels on HBO's Girls, for which she has recorded several songs. She is the daughter of NBC News anchorman Brian Williams and has appeared on The Mindy Project and The League. NBC recently announced that Oscar winner Christopher Walken will play the villainous pirate Captain Hook. "I have wanted to play Peter Pan since I was about 3 years old, so this is a dream come true," said Allison Williams, who added, "What could go wrong in a live televised production with simultaneous flying, sword fighting and singing?" Peter Pan Live is a follow-up to the success NBC found with a live version of The Sound of Music in 2013 with Carrie Underwood. Neil Meron and Craig Zadan, who produced The Sound of Music, also are working on Peter Pan Live.

• Before she was Princess Anna in Frozen or even Veronica Mars, Kristen Bell was a musical-theater geek. Now she's letting her roots show. Bell is starring in the irreverent, anti-establishment rock musical Hair at the 18,000-seat Hollywood Bowl amphitheater in Los Angeles for three shows starting Friday. "Performing again onstage is wonderful -- especially at a venue like the Bowl. It's enormous, dynamic and terrifying," she wrote this week via email. "I never thought I would perform in a place so big!" Bell, who attended the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University and made her Broadway debut in 2001 in the musical The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, will play the hippie love interest Sheila and will get to sing "Easy To Be Hard" and "Good Morning Starshine." Her co-stars include Sarah Hyland (Modern Family), Hunter Parrish (Weeds), Amber Riley and Jenna Ushkowitz (both of Glee), Benjamin Walker (Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter) Beverly D'Angelo (Coal Miner's Daughter) and Kevin Chamberlin (In and Out). Hair, which has book and lyrics by James Rado and Gerome Ragni and music by Galt MacDermot, tells the story of two best buddies who find freedom in the 1960s preoccupation with sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. The hit songs include "Aquarius" and "Let the Sun Shine In."

A Section on 07/31/2014

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