Happiness is You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown!

This delightful show, based on Charles Schultz’s Peanuts characters, has a storied history. During the early 1960s, Clark Gesner had begun writing songs but was unable to get permission to use the characters. Eventually Gesner sent Schulz a demo recording of some of the songs and Gesner soon had permission to properly record them, which he did in 1966. Although Gesner originally planned his songs as a “concept album,” he fleshed out his work when he learned a similar musical (based on Snoopy) was in development. The 1967 Off-Broadway production of You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown was a rollicking success, and ran for 1,597 performances, leading to its first Broadway production in 1971.

Fast forward to 1999, which saw a newly revised Broadway production (with additional music and lyrics by Andre Lippa, later of The Addams Family fame) The 1999 Broadway revival was notable for making stars of Kristen Chenoweth as Sally (before her Glinda in Wicked) and Roger Bart (later Tony-nominated for his performance in The Producers and now starring on Broadway in Back to the Future) as Snoopy, earning both of them Tony Awards.