A young Chris Loprete saw a lot of himself in the scrawny bald kid with the yellow and black shirt. He was insecure and wishy-washy. He was clumsy when it came to Little League. And he was never addressed casually.

"All my life, everybody always called me by my full name," he remembers. "It was never just "Chris,' it was always "Chris Loprete.' I thought, "What the hell, am I Charlie Brown or something?'"

Talking dropped fly balls and missed field goals with the 34-year-old West Chester native, on the phone from his Los Angeles home, it's clear he has moved beyond that awkward adolescence. Loprete discovered acting at Penn State, and after performing in a few local productions, he moved out West. Now he works with L.A.'s Circle X Theatre Company and has performed in the Groundlings, an improv troupe that kicked off the careers of Phil Hartman and John Lovitz.

He's happy with his life, but that self-conscious youth is still a very real part of him, one he decided to explore last year in an autobiographical one-man performance, You're From Philly, Charlie Brown. Originally part of a two-act show with his wife, Ally (Married But Solo), in Hollywood, the play is coming home for a run through the duration of Fringe.

However, the performer hardly views it as a "poor me" confessional. Paralleling his own quandary to Lucy repeatedly pulling the football away from Charlie Brown, Loprete also works in the sports mythology of the region. You know, Rocky, the Eagles, the curse of the William Penn Statue. The underdogs wondering why they always lose.

Or, as he describes it, "growing up rooting for inept teams while being inept myself."

It seems to follow the path of last year's popular Theatre Exile production The Philly Fan, but listening to Loprete describe it, it seems less acerbic, especially since the monologues and stories are threaded together by the tales of a wide-eyed young Loprete watching the Phillies fight and ultimately win in the 1980 World Series.

It delivers a message of hope, he says, and one luxury about the L.A. crowd is that most of the left coast has forgotten that we won the series 25 years ago, whereas back here it's ingrained in our collective memory. "They had no idea, and they really enjoyed seeing the story end with the Phillies winning," Loprete said.

All of this doesn't mean he's not worried about the Penn curse falling onto him. "Part of me is very trepidatious," he chuckles. "I hope nothing goes wrong. I hope I'm not insulting anybody."

He's cautiously optimistic, the same way he feels about this year's Phils when he follows the games back home. "They seem to be in the thick of a pennant race, but they've brought us to that place before," he says. "But I love 'em. I'm a die-hard fan. Sometimes they're frustrating as hell, but you just gotta keep that hope going."

You're From Philly, Charlie Brown, Sept. 2, 4, 13-14 and 16, 7 p.m.; Sept. 7, 9:30 p.m.; $15, Playground at the Adrienne, 2030 Sansom St., 70 min.