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<\/a><\/p>\nArapostathis got the Ph.D. in 2006 and started Captain Hook Theater the next year.<\/p>\n
The company\u2019s 2017 presentation, \u201cYou\u2019re A Good Man, Charlie Brown\u201d runs June 28\u2013July 1 at the Performing Arts Center at The Salvation Army Ray & Joan Kroc Corps Community Center Theatre in Rolando.<\/p>\n
Captain Hook did the play in 2012 and Arapostathis admits it\u2019s an easier set up compared to \u201cMy Fair Lady,\u201d the play he did with Peter Pan Junior Theater this past April.<\/p>\n \u201cThat one had a cast of 90, while this has a cast of 25 \u2014 plus a 40-person chorus made up of students in the junior theater program,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Although many of the students are familiar with Charlie Brown, Snoopy and Lucy from their TV specials and newspaper strips, Arapostathis had to educate them on the musical, which debuted on Broadway in 1965, and was revived in 1999.<\/p>\n \u201cI told the kids that Gary Burghoff from \u2018M.A.S.H.\u2019 played Charlie Brown in the original and they had no idea who he was,\u201d Arapostathis laughed. \u201cThe 1999 version featured Kristin Chenoweth as Sally. She won a Tony for Best Supporting Actor.\u201d<\/p>\n This musical theater version of the \u201cPeanuts\u201d strips shares much in common with the source material.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is not broken into scenes like a normal play, but vignettes,\u201d Arapostathis said. \u201cIt\u2019s meant to be watched as if you\u2019re reading the Sunday funnies. You know, three panels and the next strip.\u201d<\/p>\n Most of the students in the show have some theatrical experience so Arapostathis gives them some freedom in their performance.<\/p>\n \u201cI give them a body and they fill it out,\u201d he said. \u201cYounger kids are more like claymation \u2014 I have to mold them.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, playing the parts of established characters like the \u201cPeanuts\u201d gang can present challenges for the teen thespians.<\/p>\n \u201cThey have to play the parts of 5- and 6-year-olds without using an adolescent voice,\u201d Arapostathis said. \u201cI explain that the audience will suspend disbelief. Typically, these roles are played by 25- to 38-year-olds and the audience realizes they\u2019re not 6-year-olds.\u201d<\/p>\n The actor, or in this production, the actress playing Snoopy also has to play the character differently than in the comics (where it communicates with thought balloons) or pantomime like in the animated specials.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>