In February, Scott Nash, the illustrator for the wildly popular Flat Stanley children’s books, visited local elementary schools and now, months later, the Flat Stanley musical will finish up its 25-state 2008 tour with a performance at Stonington High School on Sunday, May 18 from 1 to 4 p.m.
Flat Stanley, who was once Stanley Lambchop until a bulletin board above his bed fell down and flattened him, was created by the late Jeff Brown, a longtime Stonington resident. While having an interesting conversation with his son who was scared that a bulletin board near his bed would fall off the wall and hit him while he slept, Brown asked his son, “What would happen?” The two decided that he’d be squished flat and he’d have to go about life being a flat person, and thus, the story of Flat Stanley was born. Brown put the story down on paper and in 1964 the book, Flat Stanley, was first published. It wasn’t until about 20 years later that the book gained significant praise and recognition, becoming a common teaching tool and source of activities for teachers around the world.
“[Brown] did a lot of traveling after that to different schools nationwide to celebrate Flat Stanley Day, or Flat Stanley Week, and he would come and speak, and he did an awful lot of that in the last 10 years of his life,” Brown’s wife, Elizabeth, said. “He really enjoyed reading to kids and interacting with them. He was very, very pleased about [Flat Stanley becoming a teacher’s tool].”
Picking up where Brown left off, The Musical Adventures of Flat Stanley now travels all over the U.S. and Canada performing at schools and community theaters. Adapted in 2007 by playwright Timothy McDonald, the author who adapted Willy Wonka into a touring musical, the play focuses on Flat Stanley’s mission to become three dimensional once again as he travels the world looking for a solution to his unique problem. Stamping himself and traveling as a human letter, Stanley makes stops in Washington, D.C., France, Hawaii, and elsewhere as he raps and sings onstage to the delight of small children everywhere.
For more information or to buy tickets to The Musical Adventures of Flat Stanley, contact the Stonington Free Library at 535-0658.