CHS Theatre Presents ‘You’re A Good man, Charlie Brown’
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In his final production as the Chrisman Theatre Director, Cole Huber has chosen for the students to perform ‘You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown’.
Originally the play was to be ‘The Addams Family’, but due to low numbers, the production was unable to move forward.
You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown will feature John Phipps portraying Charlie Brown. Charlie Brown (called Chuck by Peppermint Patty and sometimes referred to as Charles by Marcie) is a major character in the Peanuts comic strip by Charles M. Schulz.
He has been hailed as one of the best cartoon characters of all time, and he has become one of the great American archetypes.
In terms of personality, he is gentle, insecure, and lovable. Charlie Brown possesses significant determination and hope but frequently fails because of his insecurities, outside interference, or plain bad luck.
While he can be smart, he over-thinks things and this often gives him a tendency to procrastinate, as well as give him his “wishy-washyness”.
Linus Van Pelt will be portrayed by Asa Hoult. He is Lucy and Rerun’s brother, and the middle child of the van Pelt family.
Linus always means well and tries to smooth over any storms that arise amongst the gang. One of his sources of frustration is his sister Lucy, who always belittles him, particularly over his security blanket. In spite of his insightful nature, he has a naive belief in the Great Pumpkin. He is Charlie Brown’s best friend. His favorite teacher is Miss Othmar, who he is also in love with.
Lucy Van Pelt will be played by Clara Wheeler. Lucy van Pelt (sometimes referred to as Lucille) is a major female character in the Peanuts comic strip by Charles M. Schulz and the animated TV specials and movies based on it, making her debut in 1952.
Her closest friends are Patty and Violet, and she is the elder sister of Linus and Rerun, who she bullies and belittles. She is the eldest child and only daughter of Mr. and Mrs. van Pelt.
She soon grew into the familiar bossy, crabby, selfish girl known to Peanuts readers today.
Sally Brown will be played by Victoria LaBaume. Since her older brother is the protagonist of the strip and she starts out as a baby, we initially view her through his eyes: she’s a kid who needs protecting and guidance, who is too rambunctious, and who is undependable. As she grows into her own, Sally becomes a kind girl who is creative and sentimental. She shares some of her brother’s worst tendencies to procrastinate but is more cheerful than he is.
She is somewhat aimless but enjoys being a kid and tries to avoid the minimal responsibilities that entail. She’s the classic little sister who is too immature for her eight-year-old sibling but she has a highly developed sense of what’s just and cares deeply for her loved ones—particularly her perpetual crush, Linus van Pelt.
Durham Switzer will be portraying everyone’s favorite beagle, Snoopy. Snoopy is loyal, funny, imaginative and good-natured. He is also a genuinely happy dog. A running gag within the strip is that he does a “happy dance”, which annoys Lucy because she believes that nobody can ever be that happy.
However, Snoopy just thinks Lucy is jealous because she is not capable of being as happy as he is. The only thing that truly upsets him is a lack of supper. Snoopy, being a dog, has a strong hatred of cats, often making rude remarks to the cat next door (Who usually attacks him and destroys his doghouse) and in one series of strips writes stories for a magazine which just points out that cats are stupider than, and inferior to, dogs. However, Snoopy has on occasions tried to be nice to the cat next door, but their relationship always remains antagonistic.
Snoopy loves root beer and pizza, hates coconut candy and listening to balloons being squeezed, gets claustrophobia (which keeps him out of tall weeds and even his own doghouse), and is deathly afraid of icicles dangling over his doghouse. One of his hobbies is reading Leo Tolstoy’s epic novel War and Peace at the rate of “a word a day”.
Snoopy also has the uncanny ability to play fetch with soap bubbles and can hear someone eating marshmallows or cookies at a distance, or even peeling a banana. He claims to hear chocolate chip cookies calling him. Snoopy is also capable of disappearing, like the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland, as shown in a series of strips (“Grins are easy. Noses are hard. Ears are almost impossible.”).
Snoopy also loves sleeping and being lazy – a trait which often annoys Frieda. Snoopy often lies on top of his doghouse and sleeps, sometimes all day long. In one strip, Charlie Brown refers to him as a “hunting dog”, because he always hunts for the easy way out of life.
Alli Prisecaru will be portraying the piano player himself, Schroeder. He is distinguished by his precocious skill at playing the piano, as well as by his love of classical music and the composer Ludwig van Beethoven in particular. Schroeder is also the catcher on Charlie Brown’s baseball team and the object of Lucy van Pelt’s unrequited love.
After Linus van Pelt and Snoopy, Schroeder is probably Charlie Brown’s closest friend; he once angrily denounced Violet for giving Charlie Brown a used Valentine well after Valentine’s Day had come and gone (only to be undercut when Charlie Brown eagerly accepted it), and he is one of the few baseball players who has any respect for Charlie Brown as a manager (although he is as capable of ire at Charlie Brown’s poor performance as anyone else, such instances are few and far between).
Kaylee Ruff will portray Peppermint Patty. An outgoing and sporty girl, she has a crush on Charlie Brown (whom she always calls “Chuck”) and is almost always accompanied by her best friend Marcie after the latter’s introduction in 1971.
She attends a different school than most of the Peanuts cast (other than Marcie and Franklin) and she struggles with education and homework.
She lives across town with her father and stands in for good kids who live on the “bad” part of town. Peppermint Patty is loyal, courageous, and still vulnerable.
Peppermint Patty is well known for her identity as a tomboy; she often plays sports and is probably the jock of the Peanuts gang.
Peppermint Patty can often be very lazy, especially when it comes to school. She is widely known for receiving a D− grade on every test or assignment in school (in 1999, the final full year of Peanuts, her teacher presented her with a certificate placing her in the “D-Minus Hall of Fame”).
Ryan Dippy will portray one of the lesser known characters, Rerun Van Pelt. He is the younger brother of Linus and Lucy. Rerun is the youngest permanent character in Peanuts. One of his most well-known traits was his mother carrying him on the back of a bike.
The musical comedy began production in 1967 with music and lyrics by Clark Gesner. Due to the small cast and simply staging, this has been a popular choice for school theatre productions.
During the early 1960’s, Gesner began writing songs based on the Charles Schultz’s Peanuts characters, but was unable to get permission from the United Features Syndicate to use the characters in his songs. Eventually, Gesner sent Schultz a demo recording of some of the songs and Gesner soon had permission to properly record them, which he did in 1966.
In March of 1967, the musical premiered off-Broadway at Theatre 80 in East Village.
The musical began a US Tour on November 18, 1998 in Skokie, Illinois. After the tour ended on January 17, 1999, the revival opened on February 4th, 1999 and closed June 13th, 1999 having played fourteen previews and one hundred forty-nine performances.
The Chrisman Theatre’s production will feature songs such as ‘You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown’, ‘My Blanket and Me’ and ‘Queen Lucy’, along with many others.
Performances will be March 25th and 26th at 7:00 p.m. at Chrisman High School.
Tickets can be bought at the door, doors open 30 minutes ahead of time.
