Musical Peanuts
You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown comes to Registry Theatre
KITCHENER — When Kevin White saw the musical “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” at the Stratford Festival a few years ago, all the childhood joy he had experienced from the comic strip was suddenly there on stage.
“‘Peanuts’ was such an important part of my childhood and was the majority of my reading material,” said White, director of JM Drama’s production of “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown,” opening Aug. 9 at the Registry Theatre in Kitchener.
Based on the Charles M. Schulz’s “Peanuts” comic strip, the lively musical comedy is more a sequence of vignettes where Charlie and his pals work through everyday life as kids, trying to understand the world around them and answer those big, undefinable questions.
Schulz’s comic strip appealed to children as sweet and funny, but it also posed more philosophical questions for adults, such as when a character wondered “What would happen if I never showed up?” White said, “As a kid, that went over my head.”
Those big questions are pondered by Charlie and his pals, from the profound questions of life to the simplest of worries. “It spans such a wide gap,” he said. “It’s heartfelt and honest.”
As a kid, White remembers regular trips from the library, arms loaded with every “Peanuts” comic book he hadn’t already read. He loved the stories, the characters, the humour — though some of those funny lines were a little too sophisticated for a kid. Now he gets it.
Lines in the show’s script and lyrics are taken from the actual comics, adding a level of authenticity as Charlie Brown thinks about what it means to be a good person despite everything going on around him. The story has been a movie and a television series, and it first hit the stage as a musical in 1967 then appeared on Broadway. In 1999, there was a revival with new songs added. That version won several awards, and the music was nominated for a Grammy for Best Musical Show Album.
“The music doesn’t stop,” said White, who is in his directorial debut with Charlie Brown, add-
ing that in casting, he was looking for actors who had specific skills. “I needed strong storytellers because it’s a collection of stories. It’s a very endearing show.”
He also added a few elements from his own imagination, such as incorporating puppets operated by Jake Evans-Whitley. White said the musical stays honest to the original, familiar characters including the imaginative beagle, Snoopy, as he pretends to be a First World War flying ace, hunting the Red Baron from atop his doghouse. “He’s the free spirit,” said White.
“It’s a collection of jokes, but there are many heartfelt moments,” he said. “The stories and the characters still have a universal appeal, 18 years after the comic strip ended.”|
White also admits this show is allowing him to work off a bit of guilt. He knew that over the five decades Schulz drew “Peanuts,” kids from around the world wrote to the cartoonist, who often responded. But White never wrote and he felt badly about
not being able to tell the man who had so inspired him just how he felt.
Schulz drew his first “Peanuts” cartoon in 1952 and died in 2000, leaving a legacy of 18,000 strips.
“This is a tribute to him for a comic that had been part of my childhood,” White said.