When Robert Newman takes the stage as King Henry II in “Lion in Winter,” the audience spontaneously applauses before he even utters a word.

Summer in Southwest Michigan is when and where folks come to play, and in the world of live entertainment, a land of musical theater where one is hard pressed to find stage drama of the classic variety, much less a tragedy — perhaps for good reason.

Sam Callahan is having a very bad day. It’s not long before Christmas, and the generally cheerful Midwesterner, ever hopeful that he’ll catch a break in his floundering acting career, has been forced to return to his stressful and disappointing day job managing reservations in the dingy basement of an uber-hip molecular gastronomy restaurant in New York.

To walk out of the Little Theatre on a balmy summer night after the curtain closes on the expertly crafted production of “Peter and the Starcatcher" is to have spent two and a half delightful hours in the hands of master storytellers. Moreover, it is to know “all the joy you’ll find when you leave the world behind,” as Peter Pan himself said through J.M. Barrie’s pen.