If you haven’t checked in lately with the “Peanuts” gang, you’re in for some surprises.

Charlie Brown, at least some of the time, looks more like the little red-haired girl he’s pining for a Valentine from than the lovable loser getting undressed by line drives in comic strips.

In fact, good grief! “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown’s” understudy plans to study nursing at Southwestern Michigan College, ran cross country and track for the Roadrunners and plays clarinet in the band.

Gabby Wisdom, from Watervliet, played in the Panther band for Jennifer Hollandsworth and now plays for her husband, Director of Bands Mark Hollandsworth.

“I do not look like Charlie Brown,” Nick Shelton’s understudy conceded, “but I think it’s awesome. I remember watching the cartoons and reading the comic strips in the newspaper.”

“I’ve only been in one musical before (‘Moana Junior’),” said Wisdom, who is interested in pediatric nursing, “but I was in choir for a long time. I’m not in choir here. I wanted to be. Maybe next year.”

Being an understudy “is a lot because you have to learn all the ensemble stuff, too, along with your character, but I’m pretty good at memorization.”

“For fun,” she added, “I taught myself how to play guitar.”

Shelton, a vocal music major who graduated from Berrien Springs High School, has been involved in six productions, including SMC’s “Red Days” last fall as Andrew.

“My professional plan is to be a musical-theater actor. After SMC, I’d like to move on to Western or U-M,” Shelton said.

Paw Paw’s Ben Plested portrays Schroeder, struggling to play Beethoven with infatuated Lucy draped adoringly across his puny piano.

Though first seen as an understudy in November’s fall play, “Red Days,” music came before acting.

“I originally wanted Linus,” the business major said, “but my friend, Grace (Phillips, assistant director, a Niles resident who graduated from Edwardsburg High School), thought Schroeder would fit me. I’ve done musicals for like a decade. They’re more my thing than plays, but I’m starting to like acting. I had an opportunity to do some film work in Grand Rapids last summer.”

“I always watched the Thanksgiving special growing up,” Plested said of 1973’s ‘A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving.’ Then they released (‘The Peanuts Movie’ in 2015) and I really liked that because of Noah Schnapp from (the Netflix series) ‘Stranger Things.’ ” Schnapp voiced Charlie Brown.

“As a big guy,” Plested said, “it’s fun to play a kid and get some youthful energy out in a space where no one’s going to judge me!”

Tammy Mammel, directing her first SMC musical March 19-21 at 7:30 p.m. and March 22 at 2:30 p.m. in the theatre of the Dale A. Lyons Building, previously directed this show at the middle school level and for Cassopolis.

Mammel also directed theatre productions while teaching at Union High School. She left DUHS in March 2024 and became a dispatcher for Michiana Mobility, a non-emergency medical transport company. “I get to work from home,” she said.

A quarter-century removed from “Peanuts” creator Charles Schulz, who died at 77 in 2000, “I don’t know that it’s part of their daily lives by any means,” Mammel said, “but they knew the main characters when they came to audition.”

In the timeless classic, Snoopy still rules the world from atop his dog house, dancing happily when it’s suppertime, but this beagle is female, too.

Mammel cast two actors, a principal and an understudy, for each of six main characters — Charlie Brown, Snoopy (Chloe Thomas, who also appeared in “Red Days,” and Berrien Springs High School senior Allison Ott); Lucy Van Pelt (St. Joseph High School senior Rose Lawrence and cross country/track and field athlete and former Miss South Haven Oakley Rigozzi; Schroeder (Plested and Chance Turner, an English major); Charlie Brown’s sister, Sally (music major Leah Martin and Gobles High School graduate and business major Zoie Wood, who runs cross country and track for SMC; and Lucy’s blanket-toting brother, Linus (sophomore David Marlowe, whose first show was the 2025 musical, “Shrek,” and Choral Scholar Nathan Shelton, who also works fulltime as an HVAC technician).

“You could legitimately do the show with six people,” Mammel said, but she wanted an ensemble to stage a baseball game alongside the kite-flying that will have you scanning the rafters.

The cast of 16 consists of the 12 role actors and four in the ensemble (sophomore Cheyenne Rodriguez, a women’s wrestler, as Blanket; Ella Bussler, 11, as Woodstock; Lucian Preston as Woodstock and Pigpen; and Constantine music major PJ Fraczek as Shermy and Rabbit).

“This is very much a vignette show,” Mammel said. “It’s not a traditional book musical, where you start at the beginning and go through character development and conflict. It’s very much like comic strips. The opening number, ‘You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown’ involves them dancing around, then we go into little snippets. ‘Happiness’ is probably the most recognizable” song.

The production staff includes: Sarah Bussler, stage manager; Heidi Ferris, music director; Chris Seitz, accompanist; Susan Coulston, costumes; Liz Baumann, choreography; Professor Mark Hollandsworth, pit orchestra director; Professor John Tinker, set construction, including a prop piano sturdy enough to dance atop; Devyn Garcia, set decoration; Bryan Fox, technical director; Jersey Baker, Mikaylah Pease and Kynna Harrison, stage crew; pit orchestra, Christine Seitz, keyboard; Chris Chapman, bass; Joe Trojan, drums/percussion; Elisabeth Waldburger and Bridget Talbot, reeds; and Christina Kelly, violin/viola.

To purchase tickets: swmich.edu/performance