"A Charlie Brown Christmas –Live On Stage!" at the Colonial Theatre

Peanuts' timeless holiday television special comes to life on stage with the national tour of "A Charlie Brown Christmas - Live on Stage". The critically acclaimed holiday celebration that the whole family will enjoy brings Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy, Linus and the rest of the Peanuts gang together live on stage as they uncover the true meaning of Christmas and perform songs from the classic musical score by legendary composer Vince Guaraldi. The Broadway-style production complete with all-new immersive sets, lighting, choreography and colorful costumes has sold more than 300,000 tickets in prior holiday seasons. Peanuts is among the most popular and influential brands in the world, and Charles M. Schulz's Emmy and Peabody award-winning Christmas story has been a longstanding tradition, warming the hearts of millions of fans since it first aired on television in 1965. There will be a live, three-piece band on stage with a pianist, a bassist and a drummer. The Keene Sentinel caught up with Taylor Priday — who plays Lucy — by phone recently. Here's an excerpt of the conversation: V.C.: Thanks for finding time to chat, Taylor! Let's start with your performing arts background. T.P.: I've been performing since I was eight. I'm 26 now. I've been working professionally since college, so 10 years of professional work. V.C.: What have rehearsals been like? Where is the cast based? T.P.: We rehearsed for one month in Orlando. We perform it for 6 weeks from Nov. 16 to Dec. 29. The cast of eight people is based in Orlando. We rehearsed in Orlando for one month and then flew out to Iowa for three days of tech rehearsals in different venues. We've been performing in a different venue every day since then! V.C.: Which Peanuts characters are in the cast? T.P.: Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy, Linus, Frida (with the naturally curly hair), Sally (Charlie Brown's little sister), a male swing who is on stage performing in case any of the male actors step down and we have a female swing who plays Violet. In case any of the female performers go down, she would take over. V.C.: How many people are on your tech crew? T.P.: We have eight people on our tech crew, but we get people from each theater house to support our show as well. V.C.: That's so interesting. You also have three musicians on stage playing Vince Guaraldi's amazing score? T.P.: Yes, we have a three-piece band on stage with a pianist who also plays Schroder; our bassist plays Pig Pen and our drummer plays Shermy – a side character kid. V.C.: What is it like to play Lucy? T.P.: Lucy is the take charge kind of girl; I mean she's crabby and she's the crankiest out of all the characters. Her anger does come from a place of caring though. She's a child and children have such big emotions that it's hard to harness caring about things in one way, and her (way) is that she is super bossy about everything, but she gets the job done. The cast is doing a whole Christmas play and Charlie Brown is not the best director so she makes a way to pull it all together so that the show will go on. It's a pretty big plot driving role. V.C.: Which parts of yourself do you see in Lucy? T.P.: I definitely think her drive to lead charge on things because I consider myself a natural leader too and I like to push people to a common goal. I am less bossy than her, but I was a lot like her as a kid where I would take charge on things. She's definitely a type A (personality). V.C.: What is her relationship with her little brother Linus? I have a brother two years younger than me, so I was always especially drawn to Lucy's character as a kid. T.P.: Being an only child, I don't have experience with siblings but her relationship with Linus is full of love. There is so much love there. V.C.: Why do you think this production is still so popular and relevant 60 years later? T.P.: Charles Schultz did such a good job with the characters that makes them so pertinent 60 years later. I think it's that all of the archetypes of the characters exist in real life. You know a Charlie Brown or a Lucy in real life; the bossy one, the insecure one, all of the dynamics. That's what makes them so loveable. V.C.: The version you are performing is the TV special from 1965? T.P.: Yes, this version is based on the Charlie Brown Christmas Special. All of the dialogue had to be perfect, but we added Christmas songs since it's a 75-minute show. We use the music from the special and do creative side bits with it that don't have dialogue. We recreate iconic moments from the comic strip as well. V.C.: How cool! I actually met Charles Schultz in California back in the day and he signed one of my comic books! T.P.: That's incredible! I've always loved Peanuts and am a big Peanuts fan. I got married this year and we went to Japan for my honeymoon and we went to a Snoopy museum in Japan. V.C.: How neat! The score by Vince Guarlidi is excellent, too. T.P.: OMG! It's so classic! Every holiday season it's one of my favorites to cycle through. Getting to hear it live on the three-piece band — that is what he composed the music for — is incredible. V.C.: What is your favorite thing about this production? T.P.: My favorite thing about it is you see two or three generations all together liking the show for different reasons. We have a lot of grandparents with their kids and the kids' kids. The grandparents grew up watching the TV special and it's nostalgic for them. They are laughing at different things. V.C.: Who do you think is the favorite character? T.P.: The kids love Snoopy! They love his physicality and they love how silly he is. The dialogue, as Charles Schultz wrote it, is very mature without being inappropriate. For example, Lucy always says she wants real estate for Christmas. The kids are not going to find that funny, but the adults do. V.C.: Do you like to travel? T.P.: I love traveling so much. I like acting like a local for a day in different towns. Each day we sleep on the bus and then we wake up in a completely different city. We wake up, go on maps to see what local place we want to try. If the weather is nice, we go for walks and explore a museum. It's so fun to be able to find the local spots! V.C.: Favorite place you've visited in the last two weeks? T.P.: I really enjoyed visiting Grand Rapids, Michigan. It was a very walkable city and fun to explore. I went to an art museum to see an Alexander McQueen exhibit. V.C.: You said you also perform at theme parks? T.P.: I perform at Universal Orlando and Sea World. I am an actor in Universal in their Harry Potter world area, and at Sea World I perform in shows and parades in their Sesame Street land and I host their Dolphin Show. DETAILS "A Charlie Brown Christmas – Live On Stage!" takes place on Saturday, Dec. 28 at 3:30 p.m. at The Colonial Theatre, 95 Main St. in Keene. It is a 90-minute show with a 20-minute intermission. Peanuts merchandise will be on sale at the show. For more information and to buy tickets, visit https://thecolonial.org/ or visit https://www.acharliebrownchristmaslive.com/.