American Theatre Magazine Features MTH On Stage

Returning to Your Magic Tree House

In adapting beloved children’s and YA literature to the stage, the powerhouse national MTH On Stage and Chicago Children’s Theatre let presence and play guide their way.

By Gabriela Furtado Coutinho

Below is an excerpt from this feature article. Read the entire article here at American Theatre Magazine.

What is your first artistic memory? We at American Theatre love to ask folks what moment in their youth generated that first spark, what title infected them with the theatre bug. When it comes to the theatre, I recall dancing in the aisles during habitual outings to theatre for young audiences in Rio and, as a toddler, proclaiming I’d make theatre for a living. When I came to the U.S., my love for language and the written word blossomed with The Magic Tree House series and Beatrix Potter books. For some time various theatrical organizations have been fusing these mediums to capture the imaginations of new generations with fantastical page-to-stage shows, created by generous artists determined to empower youth and keep the magic alive. Inspiring me this month in Dramática are the nationwide Magic Tree House On Stage and the local Chicago Children’s Theatre.

Considering that I read and reread all the Magic Tree House books growing up, you can imagine my delight when, at the 2025 TYA/USA Conference, I got to encounter the thriving Magic Tree House On Stage initiative and learn more from its passionate team members. Among them are the effervescent, humble genius Mary Pope Osborne, author of the original books; her multi-hyphenate, music-making husband Will Osborne; versatile multigenre composer Randy Courts; and prolific playwright Jenny Laird (who also happens to be Courts’s wife). The two couples, all dear friends and Berkshires neighbors, speak of one another with profound admiration and demonstrate a fierce commitment to the books’ spellbinding spirit.

For the uninitiated, the Magic Tree House series follows the journeys of siblings Jack and Annie via a mysterious, book-filled treehouse that whisks them from Frog Creek, Pennsylvania, to time-traveling adventures around the world—and somehow returns them home in time for dinner. Mary’s nearly 70 fiction books include the original series, magical Merlin Missions for experienced chapter book readers, and a special edition. In addition, Jenny adapted eight of the original into graphic novels alongside illustrators Kelly and Nichole Thomas Matthews, and Mary, Will, and Natalie Pope Boyce have collaborated on a combined nearly 50 nonfiction “Fact Trackers,” which offer companions to each of Jack and Annie’s adventures. While they’re all still typing away on new volumes, there’s also an animated series in the works and, for now, 10 stage shows. 

Said Mary, gesticulating with fairytale flair, “I feel like we’re a bunch of elves doing Magic Tree House. Randy and Will renovated a stable that was on Randy and Jenny’s property, not far from us, and made it into a solid music studio that overlooks the hills and pastures. It’s called the Frog Creek Barn, and that’s where they do a lot of work together on the shows. It adds to this surreal feeling!” After a degree in religious studies and some global adventures of her own, Mary launched the series in 1992, hoping to transport kids around the world, introducing them to different cultures and histories through books. Once parents started telling her about the books’ impact on their kids—encouraging literacy and inspiring excitement to learn—Mary accelerated her writing process and felt determined to give even more to young readers.

“We just live in service of trying to serve the spirit and ethos. It’s really Mary’s heart that makes the books so beautiful,” said Jenny, when the author quipped that this creative team “works so hard, and I get so much credit!”

First Book, First Play, First Love

Their practices reflect admirable ethos too, as generosity extends beyond the material itself: They’ve given away more than 1.2 million books since 2012, in a personally funded project led by Mary and Will. They mostly give away books in conjunction with productions, and in many instances students from Title 1 schools who are seeing the show will receive the corresponding book one month in advance. This experience has only bolstered the students’ level of engagement and pride entering a theatre for the first time knowing the story and carrying their very own copy of the book, said Cindy Mill, director of Mary Pope Osborne’s Classroom Adventures Program and Magic Tree House Worldwide. “It might not seem like a big deal to us,” said Cindy, “But for a child to receive a brand-new book who maybe does not have access to that at all times, maybe never owned their own new copy of a book, creates a really significant moment. We’ve watched that experience going into schools.” 

Beyond the magic, what’s fascinating about MTH On Stage’s body of work is the flexibility across their offerings. They have five titles fit for regional TYA, including the first, the full-length commercial musical Christmas in Camelot, which they toured to over 50 cities with two-story-high dragons from 2008 to 2009; the Louis Armstrong jazz musical A Night in New Orleans, a collaboration with Ain’t Misbehavin’ co-creator Murray Horwitz and New Orleans legend Allen Toussaint; and the hip-hop extravaganza Showtime With Shakespeare. Licensed through MTI are four additional titles that kids can perform, with adventures among dinosaurs, pirates, and knights. Plus, there’s Jack and Annie’s Literacy Show, a 30-minute two-person mini-musical with audience participation designed for small venues and tours. The flexibility doesn’t stop there: The creative team has worked with individual productions to tailor scripts to each theatre’s needs.

Said Jacqueline Stone, artistic contributor and theatre consultant to MTH On Stage, “The team has been really amazing at being flexible with kinds of scripts, who wants to perform and produce them, and the team is really involved in figuring out different versions of each show that are unique to everyone’s needs.” Plus, the MTH On Stage team creates their very own “classroom adventures” and educational materials that they can collaborate with individual theatres to adapt. Above all, this team wants to play. 

Said Cindy, “Mary and the whole team are so excited to get the shows into more theatres around the country, so excited that they’re open to negotiate and work directly with theatres on needs, access, cast, affordability.” On that last point, she added, MTH is willing to work within local organizations’ means: “You hear a lot of big-name brands with big shows, and there’s a big price tag, but we’re not doing that.”

The team shared countless stories that continue to inspire them: audiences’ unbridled joy, untempered imaginations, the “golden confidence” of young people aged 7-8. A child whispering to Mary, “I don’t know if you know this, but I am an author too.” A mother quieting her child, “No, sweetheart, she didn’t write the Bible.” The endless lines of children around city blocks eager to meet the creatives and ask whether the Magic Tree House can take them on an adventure, or take them back in time to see a late grandparent again. The cheers, exclamations, and unison repetitions of familiar refrains from the books.

One audience, they recalled, whipped their heads around during Pirates Past Noon when the characters exclaimed they saw a pirate ship in the distance. “The kids get caught up in the moment during a play, instantly crossing the threshold into another world,” said Mary. 

“Maybe that’s why we all love theatre,” added Jenny, mentioning that the four met in theatrical contexts and can now revisit that youthful joy through their audiences. In this world, anything is possible. “It helps us get back to that. We just play.”

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Where has that childhood gone? If a whole childhood lives in a story, doesn’t that mean we can access it again?

When we return to these beloved classics, we give ourselves a present: the presence of our younger selves. We loosen our inhibitions, gasp to relive the wonder we first felt encountering stories that ignited a lifelong love of the arts. Play by play, family show by family show, we root for characters we knew and return to ourselves a little piece of who we used to be. Mary Pope Osborne has seen countless adults run to her with tears in their eyes, expressing how they miss the books. But she says, “You don’t miss the books—you miss what they held. You miss who you were. And you can have that back.”