Child Stars

Actors’ NET kids around with ‘You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown,’

By: Stuart Duncan

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Evan Baranowski plays Charlie Brown and Tess Ammerman is Lucy in the Actors’ NET production of You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown.


   Actors’ NET has always been willing to take a chance if Joe or Cheryl Doyle thought it might help the production. But, my goodness, what a risk they took with the current staging of You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown.
   In the first place the show (based on the comic strip by the late Charles M. Schulz with music and lyrics by the late Clark Gesner, a Princeton grad, it was an off-Broadway and Broadway musical of the late 1960s and ’70s) was conceived and written by grownups, to be played by adults. The point of the show always was to show child-like humor through grownups’ eyes.
   But Joe Doyle saw that his group had a host of super-talented youngsters who might very well interpret the material themselves. And who said that just because it had never been done that way, it wouldn’t work? Kids from 11 to 17 are playing the familiar characters, a 12-year-old is running the intricate sound cues and a college freshman is conducting the orchestra.
   On opening night in New York all those years ago, the reviewer from the New York Herald Tribute, Walter Kerr, did something he had never done before. He delayed his trip uptown with his review in order to visit back stage with the cast and congratulate them. His review was a day late, for which he apologized in print, but no matter, he said: "It will run forever."
   It’s almost four decades later and we have a different version of the original material (a bit more music, a little funnier selection of "strips"). But you will still marvel at the antics of Charlie Brown (never pitching a winning baseball game, but beautifully played by Evan Baranowski); Lucy’s crabiness (as set out by the remarkably talented Tess Ammerman); Schroeder’s love of Beethoven (as noted by Michael Niederer); Linus’ devotion to his ever-present blanket (as depicted by Ben Weinstein); Sally, Charlie Brown’s little sister (replacing the Peppermint Patty of the ’68 original, and played by Sarah Webster, complete with "her philosophy"); and, of course, Snoopy, empty supper bowl by his side as he battles the Red Baron, played to perfection by Maggie Morlath.
   Remarkable all. And when, as the final curtain draws near, the six of them gather to sing Gesner’s signature song, "Happiness" ("Happiness is — catching a firefly — setting it free"), you will have to have a much harder heart than I, not to feel that little tear creeping into the corner of the eye.
You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown continues at The Heritage Center, 635 N. Delmorr Ave., Morrisville, Pa., through July 8., Performances: Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m. (extra 2 p.m. performance July 7), Sun. 6 p.m. Tickets cost $20, $17, $8.50 under 13; (215) 295-3694; www.actorsnetbucks.org