Good Grief
“You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” from UC-CCM's Mosaic Ensemble Theatre
Sitting in Liberty Exhibition Hall, surrounded by college students who were born two decades after Charles Schulz died, I started wondering: do they even know what comic strips are?
I grew up reading them. Not on a phone. On newsprint that left ink on your fingers. The Sunday paper was an event — you’d pull out the color comics section and spread it across the carpet and just live there for a while. And Peanuts was the anchor. Charlie Brown getting the football pulled away. Snoopy on his doghouse. Schroeder ignoring Lucy. Linus and his blanket. These weren’t just characters. They were weekly companions. I wore my Peanuts shirt to the show — a Great Pumpkin one from a company called RSVLTS, covered in Linus and Lucy — because some relationships you don’t outgrow. I go to Kings Island and still light up when I see these characters walking around.
Schulz’s genius — the thing that made Peanuts endure for fifty years — was that the humor was rooted in something quietly devastating. Charlie Brown isn’t funny because bad things happen to him. He’s funny because bad things happen to him every single day and he keeps showing up anyway. The other kids aren’t just mean. They’re casually, consistently, almost reflexively cruel — and nobody, including Charlie Brown, seems to think it should be any different.
That’s a specific kind of humor. It’s the humor of resignation and low expectations consistently met. A kid who flies his kite knowing it will get eaten by a tree and flies it anyway is funny in a specific way.
But I wasn’t sure that would translate for a generation raised on a different kind of mean. That was the question I carried into the theatre.
I carried it back out, too — but with a different answer than I expected.
Mosaic Theatre Ensemble — a student-run organization at UC-CCM — has staged a production directed by juniors Hannah Bourgeois and Edin Kebede, choreographed by junior Gabe Raskind, and performed almost entirely by freshmen. It is charming, well-crafted, and surprisingly moving.
Bourgeois and Kebede directed this show like they got the comic strip rhythm of it — short scenes, quick transitions, moments that don’t overstay their welcome. The blocking was precise and professional, moving six actors in and out of a small stage and the floor space in front of it with a confidence that did not reflect the fact that these directors are still students themselves. Rows of chairs flanked the stage on three sides, and the cast played directly to the audience when the material called for it. It’s an intimate show, and they embraced that intimacy.
Gabe Raskind’s choreography was one of the evening’s genuine highlights. Gadiel Ascencio’s blanket number as Linus was a standout — physically inventive and funny and perfectly timed. Royce Lemons brought a musicality to Schroeder’s “Beethoven Day” that matched Raskind’s movement beautifully. And Adrian Graff’s “Suppertime” as Snoopy was a showstopper. Raskind gave him the room to be big and physical and Graff seized every bit of it. The choreography throughout was specific and expressive, elevating moments that could have been simple into something memorable.
Faculty member Steve Goers’s steady hand as music director was evident. It gave the production a polish that grounded the young cast. The band, with Aidan Schram on percussion and CJ Hastings on bass, was tight and supportive without overpowering voices that are still finding their full range.
And about those voices. Vex Blocker’s Lucy has a belt that fills a room and then some — and the control at the top of that register is impressive for a freshman. Angela Caputo Noriega’s Sally matched her, bringing a sweetness and a brightness to a character that can easily tip into one-note. These two have instruments that are already formidable, and they’re only getting started.
Je’Vaughn Williams as Charlie Brown has charisma for days. There’s a warmth to his presence that makes you root for him immediately, which is exactly what the role requires. But it was his non-verbal work that stayed with me — the small moments between the songs, the reactions, the way he held space when the other characters were tearing him down. It’s the kind of instinct you can’t teach, and it’s why programs like CCM’s matter — they give young performers the room to hone and improve what they’re naturally good at.
Gadiel Ascencio gave Linus an edge I wasn’t expecting — a sass and a sharpness that made the character feel less like a philosophical placeholder and more like a kid with actual opinions. Royce Lemons was natural and understated as Schroeder, leaning into the character’s musical obsession and studied indifference with an ease that felt lived-in. And Graff — the one non-musical-theatre major in the cast, an acting student — was physically precise and goofy when called for, sardonic when appropriate. His Snoopy was multi-dimensional.
So — the meanness. Did they get it?
Schulz’s cruelty is a product of a very specific era — one where kids read about it in four panels and moved on to Garfield. It’s not the cruelty of a group chat or a viral takedown. It’s smaller. Quieter. More persistent. And watching this cast (and the audience of fellow students) navigate those moments, I could see them working through it — committing to the bit while maybe not fully comfortable with how casually cruel these characters are to someone they call a friend.
But here’s the thing. During intermission, I overheard one of their professors talking to a parent. She said that all twenty-two freshmen in this year’s musical theatre class — every single one of them — are kind. Supportive. Good to each other.
Twenty-two kids in a competitive conservatory program, and the first word their professor reaches for is kind.
Maybe that’s why the meanness doesn’t land exactly the way Schulz wrote it. Maybe these kids are too decent to fully inhabit that particular brand of casual cruelty. And maybe that’s not a limitation of the production. Maybe it’s the point.
Because at the end of the show, Lucy hugs Charlie Brown. And I got a lump in my throat. Right there in the front row, wearing my ridiculous Peanuts shirt, surrounded by people half my age, I felt it.
Je’Vaughn Williams’s face in that moment — the quiet surprise and the gratitude — was the kind of acting that doesn’t come from training alone. That comes from somewhere real.
Whatever these students understood or didn’t understand about the specific wavelength of Schulz’s humor, they understood that. The earned tenderness. The moment where somebody who’s been difficult all night finally, briefly, shows up for the kid who needs it most.
Maybe this generation doesn’t do mean the way Schulz did. But they do kind in a way that made a sixty-year-old musical feel brand new.
Good grief. That’s more than enough.
You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown runs two more times tomorrow at Liberty Exhibition Hall. Presented by UC Mosaic Theatre Ensemble. Tickets are $5 and reservations can be made here.
Kirk Sheppard writes about Cincinnati theatre—but mostly about being human. Check out kirksheppard.com for more information.