Welcome to On the Radar, where we preview upcoming arts events to mark your calendars for. For 50 years, Charles M. Schulz’ Peanuts comic strip famously and brilliantly tapped into themes of universal angst. So it will be interesting to see if Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead, which opens on Thursday, can distinguish itself beyond the shock value of seeing beloved characters on the brink of adulthood and the conceit that lead character CB’s dog has passed on to that big MetLife balloon in the sky.
Presented by the folks at Jobsite Theater, this unauthorized parody catches up with the gang 10 years after where the comic strip left off and imagines the Peanuts gang as teenagers who are struggling with the Big Questions of death, violence, philosophy and sexual identity. You can also show your love for Jobsite and the work of its adventurous Job-side Project by attending Monday’s staged reading of Christen Petit’s Chapel Perilous. (Pictured: Shawn Paonessa and Summer Bohnenkamp-Jenkins. Photo by Brian Smallheer). Dog Sees God, Aug. 5-22, 8 p.m. Thurs.-Sat., 4 p.m., Sun., $24.50; Chapel Perilous, 7:30 p.m. Mon. Aug. 9, $5 (free for Jobsite season ticket holders), Shimberg Playhouse, Straz Center for the Performing Arts, 1010 N. MacInnes Place, Tampa, jobsitetheater.org. –Anthony Salveggi
This article appears in Jul 22-28, 2010.