'You're a Good Man,' Clark Gesner

"It sounds like you've got the same thing I've got," he tells me after we both survive a brief coughing spell. "Bronchitis. I had a doctor's appointment today." The voice is gentle and low, with a certain humility. On a late Saturday afternoon, my conversation with Clark Gesner '60 meanders from our health concerns to his memories of Princeton and on to our mutual appreciation of Betty Boop, and I almost forget that I am speaking to a guru of American musical theater. This is, after all, the man who taught Charlie Brown to sing.

Gesner's "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown" opened at the Off-Broadway Theatre at 80 St. Mark's on March 7, 1967 and has since become one of the most frequently staged musicals in America. What some might consider surprising about the show's phenomenal success is that its author never intended for it to exist.

"It was very much a personal exploration," Gesner said. "I just liked the strip. I never wanted to make a show out of it."

But for Gesner, the songs kept coming.

"It just proceeded," he recalled. "Finally I sent a demo to [Charles] Schultz, and he just liked it very much and called me back and told me so, and so from then on [I] sort of had permission."

"I was reluctant all the way through," he added, "but finally I buckled down and saw how it could be done, and I wrote songs and scenes and sort of laid it out, and it opened, and it's been supporting me for the rest of my life."

I can tell that Gesner is grateful and rather astounded by his success — genuinely amazed that a private pet project has brought him all that "Charlie Brown" has, especially since he says he did not originally see musical theater as a career.

It was, however, musical theater that drew him to the University — specifically, the Triangle Club. With a grandfather from the Class of 1890, he had a connection to the University, but Triangle reeled him in.

"I lived in Plainfield, New Jersey at the time," Gesner said. "The Triangle show came there twice and I saw both of them and I would say that decided me." He worked with Triangle all four years as an undergraduate, playing and writing music, acting and, eventually, his senior year, conducting. "Even then they got me on the stage because in the last number they came down and lifted me out of the pit and put me in a little gold piano on stage and I played," he remembered.

I ask him if he was ever a member of a Triangle kick line, and he replies eagerly, "I was! Even on television. Ed Sullivan. We were in flapper dresses. The name of the number was the 'Skulk Step.' It was a Charleston. We all had cloche hats. It was very nice."

I laugh, picturing Princeton men in flapper drag on national television, and Gesner seems pleased. He tells me about going on a European tour with Triangle after graduation, before going to New York in a Volkswagon "literally to seek my fortune."

That fortune for the next few years involved holding cue cards and eventually writing for the television show "Captain Kangaroo," serving during Vietnam on Governor's Island off the tip of Manhattan and helping get "Sesame Street" off the ground.

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And then came "Charlie Brown" and its four-year, 1,597-performance run.

I decide now is a good time to whip out my most controversial question: "Who is your favorite 'Peanuts' character?"

"Oh dear." He pauses. "I guess it's Linus. Linus I do identify a little bit more with."

Then we talk about his career since the smash comic-inspired hit, including writing the scores for "The Utter Glory of Morissey Hall" on Broadway, "Animal Fair" — which he proudly calls "really my own" — and a still-to-be-produced musical about Betty Boop. Gesner has also acted in summerstock theater in Vermont for the last dozen years.

"The main thing is that 'Charlie Brown' has allowed me to really pick and choose," he said. "I never was that ambitious. All I have is little ideas — they're like seeds and each one requires its own kind of caring."

His voice is gentle, and his words are wise and warm for a chilly Saturday. Reluctant to let the conversation end, I ask if he's coming back to Princeton any time soon. I find myself delighted when he confides that he's considering performing in a show here in a few months. "I'm still undecided. You can say I'm contemplating. I would love to be back on the McCarter stage after 40 years."