Play selection

"You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown" was selected in May when Mrs. Seegmiller asked me, if I would be interested in directing the musical again in the fall. She had some things in her life that she felt would prohibit her from doing it, and so she came to me.

At first I said, "No," because of the bad experience that I had last year of trying to keep a complete cast. As soon as we would draft students to fill the gaps, other gaps would appear. With a cast of about 45, I never did have a practice with more than 30 in attendance at any one time, including the dress rehearsals and we were relpacing 2 of the parts 2 days before opening night. Therefore, I was truly thinking, "No, thank you!"

But later, after thinking about it, I remembered this show. My older 2 children had been in it when they were in high school, and they had enjoyed it. It was in 1990, and at that time I was a 'stay-at-home-mom.' So, I made the costumes for my own children, Cameron who was Charlie Brown, and Rushel who was Peppermint Patty. Then when other mothers who were working, had a need for help, I ended up also making the costumes for Lucy, Sally, Pat and Sophie, along with the 9 oversized baseball caps and 5 oversized mitts. Cameron needed a little extra credit for his drama class, so he (and Rushel & I) made all of the props needed for the show, except the toy piano for Schroeder.

When I remembered this show, I thought to myself, "It is written for 6 characters, but Mr. Malan had added other Peanuts characters and divided up some of the speaking parts for them, I'm sure that I could do the same, and as students dropped out, I'd just cut their part and reassign the lines to others. We still had all of the props, and I'd round up the costumes that I could, and we'd repaint the boxes used for scenery, and anything else above and beyond that would be of my own choosing. It couldn't get any easier than that, and besides it is my youngest daughter, Kurlayna's senior year, and she should have a good experience."

So, I said "Yes, I'd do the musical," and then told her the idea that changed my mind.