Charlie's Magic Box
2004 · Triopia Junior-Senior High School and schools across west-central Illinois (road tour)
Charlie's Magic Box was Ken Bradbury's traveling-theatre production for the 2004 road tour, an original musical built around Charlie Brown and the rest of the Peanuts gang. Set on "a junky playground" of garbage cans, crates, license plates and hubcaps, the show opened with a wham-bang of kids drumming on found junk before the cast burst into dance. Beneath the comedy ran a gentle theme that Bradbury returned to again and again: appreciating differences — wheelchairs, left-handers, glasses, every kind of kid — and the trouble that comes when we always want more than we have.
The play was carried by Triopia students from school to school across west-central Illinois, the troupe loading up a bus each morning to perform for elementary and junior-high audiences in towns from Jacksonville and Mt. Sterling to Rushville, Astoria, Industry, Bluffs and beyond. With no budget to speak of, Bradbury noted that he could "get better performers than anyone I could hire professionally" — a cast of kids he plainly adored.
The journal Bradbury kept of the show's creation, titled The "Box" Score, traces the writing from a fall artists' retreat in October 2003 through the late nights of November when, between football and speech-team seasons, the script finally came to life. He credited student Ricky Waters as the inspiration for both the Peanuts idea and the "kids wanting too much" theme, and recorded the small moments that kept him going — a note left on his door by students promising to pray for the traveling theatre, the night he wrote Sally's soccer-ballet number and it "brought tears to my eyes."
Cast
- Charlie Brown — Nick Stephens
- Snoopy — Matt Snodgrass
- Linus — Andrew Hill
- Schroeder — Matt Meyer
- Lucy — Stephanie Nobis
- Pigpen — Granger Snodgrass
- Sally — Carly Joehl
- Rerun — Derek Carls
- Franklin — Brock Hall
- Marcie — Kim Stock
- Blake — Nick Jackson
- Sidney — Andrew Waters
- Dana — Melissa Beard
- Luka — Matt Johnston
- Mo — David Meyer
- Paulie — Katie McGinnis
- Riley — Kayla Stock
- Devan — Lakin Stock
- Brady — Katie McDannald
- Josie — Jenna Post
- Sally's Dad — Brock Hall
- Teacher — Katie McDannald
- Hit Boy — Ricky Waters
- Lucy's Angel — Jenna Post
Adam Bracco and Zach Virgin served as the hauling and stage crew, and John Wood drove the troupe's bus.
Production Notes
Rehearsals ran through December 2003 and into January 2004, many of them during winter break, building toward a guest performance on January 18 and the road tour itself — billed in Bradbury's calendar as "SHOW ON THE ROAD" — across the week of January 20–23, 2004. The company performed for schools throughout the Jacksonville area and the surrounding counties, including North Jacksonville, Westfair Christian Academy, Washington, Lincoln, Triopia, Mt. Sterling, Rushville, Astoria, Industry, Murrayville, Franklin, Our Saviors, Jefferson, the Jonathan Turner schools, South Jacksonville and Bluffs.
Dave Zink accompanied on piano. Bradbury, who also taught speech and coached the junior-high speech team that season, wrote the show in the margins of an exhausting fall, beginning the script in earnest the night the Northern Lights appeared unexpectedly over central Illinois in November 2003.
A companion event grew out of the tour: a "Mystery Supper" for the troupe on February 18, 2004, in which the cast was blindfolded and driven a wandering route to the Café from Yesterday in Beardstown. There Courtney played hostess, Dave Zink played fifties music on an old piano, and a "Dream Team" of performers — Carrie and Nathan Carls, the mind-reading Madame Sylvia, and Andrew Hill on guitar — entertained the kids. The evening doubled as a chance to share with the cast the letters and photos sent back by the schools they had visited.