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.

“You’re too good for the chorus, Cassie,” says the director from the back of the house to the lone woman in a leotard, standing on a stark stage and pleading for work.

It’s not often one attends a string quartet concert and hears witty banter among the players, much less a description of the next arrangement as “an Italian sandwich” or “almost like a tiramisu.”