I was lucky enough to see this when I was about 14. It was still running in New York and they had sent touring companies around the country.
It’s one of my favorite kids musicals. I’d love to see it again someday. So far that opportunity hasn’t come up.
I think some local college theater departments perform this play? The music doesn’t require a highly trained voice. Most theater/music majors in college can handle the range easily.
So, how did you like the play?
I’ve music directed/played piano for this show three times, twice the revised version and once the original, and it never fails to be a wonderful, wonderful experience. It’s just so well-written and full of charm… it remains one of my favorite musicals. I wouldn’t even go so far as to call it a “kids musical”, honestly. I mean, plenty of adults read the comic, right?
A bit of trivia: The show is older than a lot of people realize. It was originally written in 1967, and starred none other than Gary Burghoff (Radar from MASH) as Charlie Brown and Bob Balaban (Russell Dalrymple on Seinfeld) as Linus.
One of our local community theaters put it on last month, in fact. It was made even more fun by the fact that I knew the entire cast, and most of the crew. It’s a very fun play, and did a lot to remind me of how much I loved “Peanuts” when I was a kid. 
What I didn’t realize when I saw it is that, when they staged the Broadway revival about a decade ago, they changed a character (Patty, one of the strip’s early characters, who stopped appearing in the strip many years ago, was replaced with Sally, a part written specifically for Kristin Chenoweth), and they added or changed several songs.
I saw it decades ago. It would’ve been something like 1978, when I was 8 years old. It was put on my a local Repertory company, and can’t remember much about it, but I assume I enjoyed it.
I did work for the same Repertory company 15 years later, where some of the cast of that show subsequently became my friends.
Yeah, and I’ve had pretty heated debates within the theatre community about which version is better. Some people like the simple quality of not having much of a set, and a small band that consists of piano, bass, and drums. And some like the new songs and orchestrations (it was expanded to 5 or 6, I can’t remember, but a lot of the musicians are required to play more than one instrument, so it sounds bigger), the new characters and deletion of Patty (not Peppermint Patty), and huge scenery.
A lot of people say the charm was lost under the bombast of the new version, but then others say the old version is boring. I think there’s a place for both of them; they’re so different you almost have to look at them as two separate shows.
So, if you were on stage playing Piano. Would you be cast as Schroeder? I’ve wondered how that works. It’s been thirty years since I saw this as a kid.
My sixth grade teacher played Lucy the year after we had her, so a whole bunch of us from that class went to see it. It rocked.
I saw the most recent b’way production. I liked it a lot.
I know many High Schools do it as the cast is flexible. You can add or drop characters as your talent pool allows.
I loved “My New Philosophy”, which is the Sally song.
Nope. But I did see and thoroughly enjoy Dog Sees God, about the Peanuts Gang in their teenage years. Enjoyable entirely on it’s own merits, but made even more enjoyable by the all star cast:
Eddie Kaye Thomas as CB (Charlie) [Shipwreck from American Pie]
America Ferrera as CB’s Sister (Sally) [Ugly Betty]
Logan Marshall-Green as Beethoven (Schroeder) [The OC]
Ian Somerhalder as Matt (Pig Pen) {Lost / Vampire Diaries]
Keith Nobbs as Van (Linus)
Kelli Garner as Tricia (Peppermint Patty)
Ari Graynor as Marcy (Marcie)
Eliza Dushku as Van’s Sister (Lucy) [Buffy’s Faith]
Sup-sup-suppertime
Very best time of day
Never actually seen a performance, but my Dad had the soundtrack on vinyl and I always loved many of the numbers for it. When I got my MP3 boombox with the line-in conversion function, that was one of the first vinyl albums I ‘ripped’ to MP3, and several of those MP3s are among the favorites in my library, particularly “The Book Report.”
For which Chenoweth won the Tony, Drama Desk, Clarence Derwent, and Outer Critics Circle Awards for Best Featured Actress in a Musical. She was fabulous.
Maybe this could be discussed in the purist thread.
I saw a junior college production when I was a kid, must have been about 1969 or 70 and helped with music and tech for a high school production (directed by my wife) about 4 years ago. (We did the original version.)
My most memorable moment (of our production) was the glee club scene. The kids just weren’t getting it, kept missing cues, and it was coming across as very boring. My wife was getting frustrated and even considered cutting the scene. Then during a rehearsal I was in charge of, I got them started and left the auditorium for a quick pit stop. As I was coming back a minute later, I noticed that with no adults in the room they had started clowning around. I watched through the door till they finished the song, then walked in and said something like “Yes! That’s what we’ve been trying to get you to do!” Immediately I saw six lightbulbs above their heads, and they nailed it every time after that.
No, but we had a cast album. Probably was part of Mom’s collection of Peanuts stuff.
Indeed (and she also happens to be one of my favorite actresses). A link to a video with her performing “My New Philosophy” at the Tonys:
You beat me to it! Dog Sees God is great, one of my favorite plays all time. And I saw it put on by students at my college, not famous actors. Seriously, people, go see it if you get the chance. In return, I promise I’ll go see You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown as soon as I can. 
I played Charlie Brown my senior year in HS (fall 1973), but I never saw it by another cast, so . . . should I answer “no?”
Nah… the band is a separate entity and doesn’t exist in the world of the show. There is the character of Schroeder in the show, and he does play piano while Lucy sings (he’s playing Moonlight Sonata and she’s singing an annoying melody over it to get his attention… it’s brilliant). In our productions, I played it while Schroeder made the motions on the onstage piano, but I suppose if the actor can play and you wanted a real piano onstage (in addition to the one that’s in the pit) you could have him play it.
Saw it in its original form off-Broadway in 1969, with my girlfriend at the time who was a big Peanuts fan. It ran in the same theater that Little Shop of Horrors did quite a bit later.
Seen it and played Charlie Brown in both this one and in Snoopy.