Our favourite Peanuts characters are shedding their ink and materializing on the Eagle Eye Theatre stage for Broadway or Bust's production of the musical comedy You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown Friday and Saturday (May 8 and 9).
The whole gang got things started opening night on Thursday (May 7), where audience members were treated to the sophisticated humour and jazzy rhythms surrounding a day in the life of Charlie Brown, which were revived and revamped on Broadway about 10 years ago after first appearing on stage in 1967.
The show stays stylistically true to Charles M. Schulz's comic strip by incorporating moveable frames, said musical director Melissa Braun.
"We want it to look like the scenes are taking place within the comic book cells," she said. "And the humour is very similar to the comic strips. It's basically musical numbers linked together by little vignettes. Each little moment is a comic strip vignette."
The lead cast consists of six actors ranging in age from 15 to 20. Character assignments came naturally once the cast was chosen and began working with the material, said Braun.
"As soon as we started working on the script I was really happy with the casting. I thought it was really appropriate," she said.
Cast members like 16-year-old Joey Wong, who plays young piano sensation Schroeder, said he and his fellow cast members share similar traits to their characters.
"I definitely think when the directors chose parts for us they were pretty close to who we were," he said.
Although lead Clifford Donovan is much lankier and lacks the eggshell head of our man adorned in yellow with a black zig-zag, the 18-year-old finds it easy to get down in the dumps on stage. But is he really that much of a downer in real life?
"Well, I'm pretty close," he said with a slight smile.
"It's really easy to act low down. It's one of the easier roles to play. It's a lot of fun because the whole play we get to act really young, but then not really young, because they're all really sophisticated children."
The rest of the cast is made up of Marni Jarvis (Sally Brown), Erin Beaubien (Linus), Tiera Andreef (Lucy) and Emma Pederson (Snoopy), while Jamie Sweeney, Dumont Omeasoo and Lauren Aikens make up the ensemble.
Evening shows start at 7:30 p.m. and there is a Saturday (May 9) matinee at 2 p.m. Tickets are $10 for students and $15 for adults, available at Billie's Bouquet and the Adventure Centre.
