by J.A. Ginsburg

Few things are as nearly as much fun – or satisfying – as seeing an idea become real. This Spring, with the first touring performances of “The Main Street Kids’ Club:  A MathStart Musical,” Stuart and I are literally dancing and humming with delight. This is even better than we’d hoped…

Based on six of Stuart’s MathStart books (listed & linked at the bottom of this post), “MSKC” tells a tale of adventure, mystery, friendship and math. And it gets the math right! What’s not to sing about?

It is hard to believe that is all started with a friend’s casual comment about Stuart’s jam-packed schedule and how great it would be if we could only clone him so he could visit more schools to get even more kids excited about math. “A play? Maybe a musical?” We wondered how such things happen.

Serendipity helps. Rives Collins, a gifted storyteller and chair of the Theatre department at nearby Northwestern University, was intrigued when I brought over a stack of a dozen of Stuart’s MathStart books one afternoon. He almost fell over when I told him there were actually 63 titles in all.  Clearly, this was going to require the talents of someone undaunted by such a wealth of material, someone who knew how to craft a story that would work as theatre, someone who really understood that math skills are indeed life skills.

Enter Scott Ferguson. Scott, a Northwestern alum, has been working in Chicago theatre for the better part of two decades, both as an actor and director. Included among his many credits is a popular stage adaptation of the 1970’s Saturday morning television classic, “Schoolhouse Rock.” A perfect choice! With Rives paving the way, Scott directed a workshop class, bringing in actor and musician Michael Mahler to collaborate on the score. Michael, also an NU alum, had recently worked on the score for a “How Can You Run with a Shell on Your Back?,” a stage version of Aesop’s Fables that premiered at Chicago’s Tony award-winning Shakespeare Theater. Like Scott, he brought an intuitive sense of how to weave a series of unrelated stories in single compelling story for the stage.

The class was an instant hit. Here was a chance to help develop a new musical! Something that combined literature and math! YES! So many students signed up, they had to be split into two troupes. Stuart came, read stories and talked about the background and philosophy of MathStart and about visual learning. Throughout the development of the script, he was consulted to make sure the math was presented correctly.

Now, with the first performances touring schools in the Chicago area, reviews are coming in from real live kids. “RAD!” says one third-grade critic, giving it an enthusiastic “thumbs up.” A teacher was asked by her class to find out if there’s an album – they loved the music and wanted to hear it again. Great idea!

In the meantime, you can listen to song clips and read more about the production at MainStreetKidsClub.com

• For information on booking a performance or production through Theatrebam Chicago, contact Scott Ferguson at theatrebam@mac.com or by phone: 773.465-8668

• For information on obtaining the licensing rights to stage an independent production, contact HarperCollins at ChildrensPermissions@HarperCollins.com or by phone: 212.207.7700 or fax: 212.702.2582

Math: It’s a musical thing!

ADDITIONAL LINKS:

These books are featured in “The Main Street Kids’ Club: A MathStart Musical”:

Treasure Map (Mapping)

Lemonade for Sale (Bar Graphs)

Less Than Zero (Negative Numbers)

100 Days of Cool (Numbers 1 – 100)

Captain Invincible and the Space Shapes (Three-dimensional Shapes)

More or Less (Comparing Numbers)

Filed Under: Education, Math musical, Visual Learning | Tagged; "Stuart J. Murphy", "The Main Street Kids' Club: A MathStart Musical", MainStreetKidsClub.com, math, mathematics, Mathstart, Michael Mahler, Rives Collins, Scott Ferguson