A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS SOFTWARE

“In a big way, it really doesn’t matter if it’s accurate,” Sterling says. Even the show’s producer, she says, has told the story one way in one interview, another way in yet another interview. Sterling’s research into the show uncovered conflicting stories of how it came to be. So the 55-year-old “A Charlie Brown Christmas” has aged better than at least one of its stars. Including against a plastic surgeon who gave his former girlfriend breast implants that he didn’t like.

A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS SOFTWARE

Years of software upgrades later, and with the harsh passage of time, Googling the cast of “A Charlie Brown Christmas” tells a more complete story: The 9-year-old kid who originally voiced Charlie Brown was sentenced in 2015 to nearly five years in prison for stalking and making terroristic threats. Sterling admits the research went nowhere. Her main investigative tool at the time was what she calls “the nascent internet.” The early, coal-powered version of the World Wide Web. “See how their lives turned out,” as Sterling says. Sterling thought it might be interesting to see what had become of the elementary school kids who supplied the voices for the show. She first began looking into the story behind “A Charlie Brown Christmas” 15 or 20 years ago, she guesses, as a producer for a local television newscast.

Sterling has evolved from open-mic comedy gigs to working with local comedy troupes to presenting her acclaimed spoken-word show “Spy In the House of Men” at the KeyBank Rochester Fringe Festival.

Sterling will reveal the secrets she has uncovered before allowing viewers to ask questions or share their own Ghosts of Christmas Past. That’s just one of Penny Sterling’s revelations in “The Story Behind the Story of ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas,’ ” presented live at 7:30 p.m. If it weren’t for Willie Mays, we might never have been blessed with “A Charlie Brown Christmas.”

A charlie brown christmas