'Peanuts' moves from the comics to the stage in Tucson

A 50-year-old musical based on a 70-year-old comic strip that features children 5 and younger still gets staged today.

And audiences love it.

This weekend, Live Theatre Workshop opens “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown,” based on the “Peanuts” comic strip by Charles Schulz.

Then again, it kind of does make sense. Lucy, Linus, Charlie Brown, the sassy Beagle Snoopy, and the whole gang are, well, irresistible.

Here are six reasons you might want to snag tickets:

1. You can bring the kids. Or, the kids can bring you. This is a production of LTW’s family arm, which presents plays geared toward children on Sunday afternoons. But this one has moved into the main stage slot. There’s plenty to delight the kids — and you. Plus, the tickets are a bargain — $10 for kids, $12 for adults.

2. It’s not just a comic strip. One of the things that made the “Peanuts” comics so popular is that the young Charlie Brown gave voice to the anxieties and insecurities that plagued many of us when we were that age. And though the things we worried about back then may have changed, most of us still carry anxieties and insecurities.

3. Snoopy. And Charlie, Lucy, Linus, Schroeder, Sally. Spending time with these characters can be a giddy experience. Snoopy is forever adopting his World War I flying ace character in search of the Red Baron. Lucy is as bossy as they come, mad at the world, and hopelessly in love with the piano-playing Schroeder. Linus won’t let go of his security blanket. And Charlie Brown just can’t get a break. The characters are funny, annoying, endearing. And they are sort of like us.

4. The music. Written by Clark Gesner with additional songs by Andrew Lippa, there are tunes in the play that are hard to get out of your head. Among them: “My New Philosophy,” a back-and-forth between Schroeder and Sally about her just-adopted philosophy: “Oh yeah? That’s what you think!” and “Suppertime,” sung by Snoopy (“Bring on the dog food, bring on the bone/ Bring on the barrel and roll me home”) can be a show-stopping delight.

5. The stage. “You’re a Good Man …” gets lost in a big theater; it needs an intimate space to capture and keep an audience’s attention. LTW is definitely intimate.

6. The cast and director. Samantha Cormier is shaping the show that stars Richard Gremel as Charlie Brown, Cyndi LaFrese as Sally, Michael Martinez as Snoopy, Kaitlyn Fabry as Lucy, Gino Cocchi as Linus, Steve Wood as Schroeder. That list includes some of our favorite Tucson theater folks.