STAGE REVIEW : Music Lifts ‘Charlie Brown’ to the Peanut Gallery : Westminster Community Theatre’s pleasantly bright production is wholesome and acceptably juvenile.

Charlie Brown, the world’s youngest antihero, has been taking the hard knocks in comic strip suburbia for coming on to half a century now. But you don’t have to read the funny pages to enter the unique neighborhood where Brown lives with the rest of Charles Schultz’s Angst- ridden children.

Mega-stars though they may be, they are on stage now in the Westminster Community Theatre’s production of “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown,” a pastiche of vignettes featuring those immortal characters from “Peanuts”: Snoopy, the adventure-seeking, comfort-loving dog; Lucy, the loudmouthed egotist; Linus and his blanket, Schroeder and his piano, and of course Charlie Brown, that bighearted, thoughtful, ineffectual, worried, perfectly modern man.

Clark Gesner, who wrote the book, music and lyrics, preserves Schultz’s gently sardonic humor in the lilting songs. And though director Edward J. Steneck’s production is blunt-edged as satire goes, it’s a pleasant show of primary colors, bright and wholesome in a sentimental way.

Bradley Miller stars as Charlie Brown, bringing a true tenor and an appropriately unassuming presence to his characterization. Richard DeVicariis is a shifty-eyed Snoopy, and Melinda Granit charms as Lucy, blatting out her high notes and charging into even the most baldfaced lies with the confidence of a born matron.

Philip Weitzman as Linus and Rick Shapiro as Schroeder have their moments, and Heather Woods perks up the undefined role of Patty.

The musical direction by Bob Goff sounds crisp and juvenile. Although several of the performers have pitch problems, the sense of childishness forgives imprecision. The production is softhearted and so was the opening-night audience, which groaned sympathetically for poor Charlie Brown. The big laughs that kept my brother and me in stitches as children are not part of this production, but you need some teeth to bite into a good joke, and this “Charlie Brown” is mostly wistful smiles.

‘You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown’

A Westminster Community Theatre production of the musical. Book, music and lyrics by Clark Gesner, based on characters by Charles M. Schultz. Directed by Edward J. Steneck. With Bradley Miller, Richard DeVicariis, Melinda Granit, Philip Weitzman, Rick Shapiro and Heather Woods. Musical direction by Bob Goff. Choreography by Alison Boole. Continues Fridays and Saturdays at 8:30 p.m. through Feb. 6 with a matinee Jan. 31 at 2, at 7272 Maple St., Westminster. $7-$9. (714) 527-8463. Running time: about 90 minutes.