The Performing Arts Department at UC High will perform its first musical of this century, You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown (YGMCB), from May 12 to 15 in the auditorium. The Performing Arts Department is working with the Music Department to coordinate the production.
According to Assistant Director Casey Johnson, YGMCB is based on the Peanuts comic strip by Charles Schulz. “The comic strip from the newspapers that everyone used to know and love is brought to life by music and costumes and dancing,” said Johnson. “It [the musical] is kind of a bunch of short stories that are tied together in the end with the same theme, which is happiness. It’s not a huge plot, but they’re little stories, kind of like little comic strips,” she explained. “In the end, they all come together in the song ‘Happiness,’” she added.
According to Theater Director Matt Moody, the last musical before YGMCB that UC High students performed was How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying in 1999. UC High has not had a musical for over a decade partly because organizing a musical is much more difficult and complex than putting on a straight play, according to Johnson.
“It’s hard to do a musical because there are so many more components that go into it than into a regular play because there’s music, [and] you have to get someone who can conduct an orchestra,” she said. Johnson also added that in order to put on a musical, “you have to get a music director in addition to a [theater] director who stages the show and does the blocking and helps us with acting. You have to make sure that the actors can act and they have to be able to sing and also dance. A musical is a big, big, big project.”
Organizing the music component of the performance was solved by involving the UC High Music Department. According to Johnson, the UC High orchestra will perform songs for the musical. “Mr. Corenman is helping us out with [conducting the orchestra], which is really awesome,” said Johnson. Moody said, “We wanted to bring in as many students and families as we could, so incorporating the UC orchestra, band and choir is a great opportunity to showcase a strong school-wide performing arts program and widen the tent to arts disciplines in addition to acting.”
Another obstacle according to Johnson is that a musical costs more to put on than a play. “As far as funding goes, we intend to fundraise 1,500 dollars for the production,” said Moody. Musicals are expensive, said Johnson: “You have to pay for the rights for all the music, and every time we perform it, we have to pay for it.”
These production funds are raised from a variety of sources. “We fund it from the University City Performing Arts Club. We try to get donations as much as possible and we have people in our classes go out and ask for donations or have businesses pay to have an ad in our programs. Also, money we made from past productions such as John Lennon and Me goes to funding the next production. We made quite a bit of money from that show, so we’ll be able to use that towards the musical,” said Johnson.
“The idea for the [YGMCB] musical came from the fact that I was a stage trumpeter and a member of my high school’s stage orchestra during its production of You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown in 1996,” said Moody.
“I think a musical’s more fun because there’s more music and not just dialogue,” said Assistant Director Suzette Ramos. “I just hope that everyone decides to come only because it’s a musical and we haven’t done one in so long.”
“We’ve been trying to do a musical for a few years, so it’s kind of surreal that it’s actually happening. I’m really excited,” said Johnson. “It’s really such a fun show with such a great message, and I really hope that the students of UC High come see it.”