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Insights
A Study Guide to the Utah Shakespeare Festival
You’re a
Good Man,
Charlie
Brown
For more information about Festival education programs:
Utah Shakespeare Festival
351 West Center Street
Cedar City, Utah 84720
435-586-7880
www.bard.org.
Cover photo: James Stover (left) as Schroeder and Chris Mixon as Charlie Brown in You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown, 2002.
You’re a Good Man,
Charlie Brown
Contents
Information on the Play
Synopsis4
Characters5
About the Playwright
6
Scholarly Articles on the Play
Good ol’Charlie Brown
7
Utah Shakespeare Festival
351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880
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Synopsis: You’re a Good Man,
Charlie Brown
When the play, You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown, was first staged on March 7, 1967, at
Theatre 80 in New York City, there was no real script. The six young actors were armed mostly
with ten songs and ten years’ worth of cartoons by “Peanuts” creator, Charles M. Schulz.
Clark Gesner, who created the music and lyrics for the play, notes in the foreword to the
Random House edition of the script that the success of the play could be largely attributed to
Schulz’s “immensely human view of the world and his special ability to say it for all of us.”
The story of the play itself is told through a series of vignettes that mimic the four-panel format
used by the original cartoon strip, “Peanuts.” This panel format is supplemented with longer passages that are vaguely reminiscent of Shakespearean soliloquies and by musical interludes.
The scope of the play is described as an average day in the life of Charlie Brown and is broken
into two acts.
The play begins with Charlie Brown and Linus talking. “I really don’t think you have anything
to worry about, Charlie Brown,” Linus says. “After all, science has shown that a person’s character
isn’t really established until he’s at least five years old.”
“But I am five. I’m more than five,” laments Charlie Brown.
“Oh. Well, that’s the way it goes,” says Linus.
The play moves along quickly, introducing more of the “Peanuts” gang; Patty, Schroeder, Lucy,
and Snoopy. All of the characters share their observations, largely unflattering, of Charlie Brown.
Lucy, for example, discusses what she terms Charlie Brown’s “Failure Face.”
As the play progresses, the relationships of the “Peanuts” characters to one another are further
expanded. To anyone who has followed the comic strip, these relationships will not provide any
surprises. Included is Lucy’s infatuation with Schroeder and her perverse joy at tormenting Charlie
Brown, Linus’s love of his blanket, Snoopy’s rich world of imagination, and, of course, Charlie
Brown’s hopeless love-at-a-distance of the mysterious little redheaded girl.
The play concludes with the characters each listing the things that, for them, constitute happiness. Then, as the group leaves the stage, Lucy approaches Charlie Brown and shakes his hand.
“You’re a good man, Charlie Brown,” she tells him.
Charlie Brown is left alone on the stage, with a faint smile forming on his face.“I’d do it again, I
assure you,” he tells Valentine. “You never can tell, sir.”
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Utah Shakespeare Festival
351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880
Characters: You’re a Good Man,
Charlie Brown
Linus: Lucy’s brother, Linus always carries a blanket as his security and comfort. He is usually mild,
but can become quite vocal and aggressive if someone takes his blanket.
Charlie Brown: Five years old, Charlie Brown has very little self confidence and does not succeed at
anything, even though he keeps trying. He is a kind and generous person.
Patty: With her “naturally curly hair,” Patty is completely centered in herself and how she appears to
others.
Schroeder: A virtuoso piano player with a child’s mind and body, Schroeder is a disciple of
Beethoven. Although Lucy is infatuated with him, he sees her mainly as a nuisance.
Snoopy: Although he is Charlie Brown’s dog, Snoopy many times has more wisdom and human
qualities than the people around him.
Lucy: Linus’s big sister, Lucy is a tough girl and always wants her way. She is infatuated with
Schroeder.
Utah Shakespeare Festival
351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880
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The Playwright: Clark Gesner
Composer, Lyricist, Librettist
From Insights, 2002
Originally composer/lyricist/librettist Clark Gesner had no intention of turning his “Peanuts”
songs into a stage musical. However, producer Arthur Whitelaw convinced him to work up a theatrical version based on Charles Schultz’s popular comic strip, and it was soon presented at a tiny
East Village theatre as You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown where it remained for four years.
That, however, was only the beginning of a host of popular runs of the musical throughout
the world.
In addition to You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown, Gesner wrote the book, music, and lyrics for Animal Fair, which premiered at the Denver Center Theatre. He also wrote with Nagle
Jackson Broadway’s The Utter Glory of Morrisey Hall, as well as revues of Leonard Sillman and
Julius Monk.
For television he wrote for Captain Kangaroo, Sesame Street, and That Was the Week That
Was.
As an actor, he has appeared regularly in B. T. McNicholl’s Musicals in Concert series and
performed regionally in 1776, Lend Me a Tenor, Carnival!, and other musicals.
The Jello Is Always Red, a revue of Gesner’s cabaret and theatre songs, was recently produced
by the New Theatre Company.
Gesner passed away on July 23, 2004 at the age of 64.
Good Ol’ Charlie Brown
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Utah Shakespeare Festival
351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880
By Don Leavitt
From Insights, 2002
If Charles Schultz had lived to see them, how would his Peanuts gang have reacted to the horrific things that happened on September 11, 2001? Snoopy would most likely be the first to volunteer,
boarding his trusty Sopwith Camel to take to the skies against the bad guys. Perhaps Linus would
clutch his security blanket just a little bit tighter. Sally, with her unwavering faith in herself, would
try to rationalize the tragedy, trying to make sense of it when even the adults around her failed to
completely comprehend it.
And Charlie Brown, Schultz’s Everyman, might grab a nickel to see if the Doctor is in. Doubly
unsure now of himself and the world around him, he would still blindingly, trustingly try to kick the
ball when Lucy offered to hold it for him, and, when he inevitably ended up on his back staring at
the sky, we would smile in spite of ourselves. Good ol’ Charlie Brown.
When Schultz created his comic world more than fifty years ago, he graced it with an innocent
charm that some say will never be duplicated. His characters were little people with unique personalities inhabiting a world where adults were always just out of the picture, their voices just so much
garbled noise—yet adults, seeing the mature wisdom in the comic characters, were his main readers. Through his born-loser main character, Charlie Brown, Schultz gave us wide-eyed optimism in
the face of constant, certain disaster: the sheer joy of a baseball game with your friends even if you
always lose; or the quiet pleasure of flying a kite on a beautiful day even if you end up entangled and
hanging from a tree.
It was exactly this happiness that attracted fans to Peanuts when it first appeared in seven newspapers in October 1950. Its popularity grew quickly, and, by the end of its run, the comic strip was
appearing in nearly 3,000 newspapers worldwide. In the meantime, Peanuts appeared on greeting
cards, in several Emmy-award winning animated television specials and as a Tony Award-winning
Broadway musical called You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.
The musical is the brainchild of Clark Gesner, a gifted composer who created the book, music,
and lyrics of You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown. Inspired by Schultz’s comic strip, Gesner originally
wrote the songs with no intention of ever turning them into a stage production. However, in the
mid 1960s, he played his songs for Broadway producer Arthur Whitelaw, who encouraged Gesner
to create a musical based on Peanuts.
Gesner knew You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown would strike a chord with audiences. A devoted fan, he desperately wanted to capture the innocence and happiness of the Peanuts gang in a live
show. As a writer for Sesame Street and Captain Kangaroo, Gesner knew how to play to children.
But could he write about children in a way that would entertain adults? Rather than create original
stories and risk missing Schultz’s unique charm, Gesner decided to use stories written by Schultz in a
series of vignettes linked by Gesner’s original songs.
The result was magic. For audiences, it was as if they were reading the comic strip in their
Sunday newspaper, watching each scene panel played out before them. It brought the world of
Charlie Brown to life in a way that exceeded even Gesner’s and Whitelaw’s expectations.
The play opened off-Broadway at the Theatre 80 St. Marks in 1967 and stayed there for four
years and more than 1,500 performances before moving to Broadway’s John Golden Theatre in
1971. The play was not nearly as well received on the Great White Way and closed after only 32
performances.
You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown had made its mark, though. For nearly thirty years, the
musical has played in theatres around the country, many times with adults playing the familiar
roles. It spawned several national and regional tours and inspired a less well-received sequel entitled
Snoopy. Then in 1999, a revival was mounted that returned the play to Broadway. The musical was
Utah Shakespeare Festival
351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880
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reworked with new songs, additional music and the inclusion of Sally, Charlie Brown’s younger
sister who was missing from the original book. The result was a critical success that won two
Tony Awards and the appreciation of a whole new generation.
It’s hard not to like Peanuts, and even harder not to like You’re a Good Man, Charlie
Brown. Most everyone can easily identify with Charlie Brown—the feeling of awkwardness,
of never quite being in sync with the people around us, and the fear that no matter how hard
we try, things might never, ever work out the way we want them to. But Charlie Brown also
reminds us that there is a lot of happiness to be found in life, no matter how badly things may
seem to go, and that true happiness is found in relatively simple things. Nothing captures this
better than Gesner’s finale: “Happiness is finding a pencil . . . learning to whistle . . . two kinds
of ice cream . . . being alone now and then. Happiness is anyone and anything at all that’s loved
by you” (Act 2).
It’s a nice message for today, when everything seems a little uncertain and scary and complicated. When Charles Schultz died in February 2000, he left us a hero who, despite his failings, never quits. Clark Gesner simply put that message to music: Charlie Brown might never
actually kick the ball, but no matter how many times Lucy pulls it away, he’ll never stop trying.
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Utah Shakespeare Festival
351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880
Utah Shakespeare Festival
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