playbill vip

Charles M. Schulz was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on November 26, 1922. His Peanuts comic strip debuted in 1950 in just seven newspapers and launched a cultural legacy. When Schulz announced his retirement in December 1999, Peanuts was syndicated in over 2,600 newspapers worldwide, with book collections translated in over 25 languages.

Jose Cuauhtémoc (Bill) Melendez was educated in Arizona and then later at the Chouinard Art Institute, known now as CalArts. Hired by Walt Disney in 1938, Bill contributed his talents to such projects as Fantasia, Dumbo, Pinnocchio and Bambi. Bill was one of the prime movers of the Disney strike of 1941.

Lee Mendelson is a third-generation San Franciscan, born March 24, 1933. He graduated from Stanford University in 1954 and served as a navigator in the United States Air Force from 1955 to 1957. He was a writer-producer-director at KPIX-TV in San Francisco from 1961 to 1963, where his series on the history of California won a coveted Peabody Award.

Along with Charles Schulz and animator Bill Melendez, Lee went on to produce 45 Peanuts prime-time specials, which won four more Emmys and one more Peabody and 15 other Emmy nominations. He was also the Executive Producer of four Peanuts animated feature films.

Eric Schaeffer co-founded Signature Theatre in Arlington, VA, in 1989 and was its artistic director for three decades. The theatre received the 2009 Regional Theatre Tony Award and became home to the American Musical Voices Project (AMVP) – the largest musical commission program in America. He directed over 60 productions for Signature.