no idea why peter pan is a female unless its to do with the youthful thing.

because most men, even small, lithe, youthful-looking men, have voices that would be too deep to be the voice of Peter Pan.

assuming it's in production for a while

and a male with gymnastic skills is a whole lot bulkier than a female.

Ira Glass said it's the only time he's ever had to turn off his microphone because he was laughing so hard he was embarrassed. It's about a small town director who's version of Peter Pan goes terribly, terribly wrong.

I almost drove the car off the road the first time I listened to it.

Hey ! I found it! Treat yourself.

successful enough to go on for a significant time.

really didn't care if Timmy fell down the well. It was a feminist thing.

My middle daughter was in the room (holding a cat, of course) when I lost it. I explained the posts and she knew about Timmy. She found it equally funny.

She's larger than most males. Typically females only hit about 50 or so pounds. She clocked in at 77 at one point. We switched foods and she's back down in the 60's range (good weight for her), but she's just a beast for the breed. In sharp contrast, our sheltie was the runt and she's never been above 22 lbs. Sort of a Mutt and Jeff thing.

Females were too articulate for the role.

who wouldn't break the wires in the "flying" scenes.

It's painful to males in places that females don't have.

but I think it's mostly for the voice, but size is a plus.

Sure, there might be guys who could do it, but you're going to have far more women than men to choose from if you're just looking for people of a smaller size with a voice in a certain register.

I had some friends who were in my college production of it... can't remember who played Peter though - or if they were male or female. I'm pretty sure I was too interested in a girl who was one of the lost boys to notice.

putting a real child through that is too much. Maybe a film version could do it, but not on the stage.

He's small, has the phsical skills and his voice could be dubbed over with that of recordings of Mary Martin's when she played the role.

It's easier to find a female with shoulders and height small enough to be a boy than it is to find a man. Also females voices do not change with puberty. And they don't get five o'clock shadow, though makeup could probably fix that.

You could put a boy in the role, but you would have to keep swapping him out with a new lead as he grew. And it is a pretty big role for a kid.