The creative process from Fermat to Broadway!

Science and Theater:
Fermat's Last Tango: The Musical
December 3, 2001, 6-7:30pm
Free

The Presenters:

Joanne Sydney Lessner (book and lyrics): Playwright (Chess Set, Critical Mass, Crossing Lines), novelist and actor.
Joshua Rosenblum (music and lyrics): Composer (The Joy of Going Somewhere), pianist, conductor and writer.
Jonathan Rabb (Fermat) Actor and author (The Overseer and Book of Q).
Chris Thompson (Professor Keane) Actor and singer (Kiss Me, Kate, The Merry Widow, The Marriage of Figaro).

A Review: Fermat's Last Tango

Not since Schoolhouse Rock has the splendor of math been as affectionately serenaded as it is in Fermat’s Last Tango. That’s right, math. But don’t look to this new musical for brush-up work on multiplication tables; the problem that’s under consideration here stumped mathematicians for 350 years.

It was just four years ago, however, that composer Joshua Rosenblum rushed out in search of a book after a New York Times review convinced him it was ripe source material for a musical. This wasn’t a sweeping novel of mystery and intrigue or the melancholy biography of a noted but misunderstood artist—although it had elements of both those genres. The book was Fermat’s Last Theorem by Amir D. Aczel, and it sung to Rosenblum. With his wife and collaborator, Joanne Sydney Lessner, he quickly began working on a musical inspired by the true story of Princeton University math professor Andrew Wiles, who was thrust into the limelight seven years ago after he claimed to have solved Fermat’s Last Theorem, a puzzle that had kept mathematicians at work on a solution since the 17th century.

Composer and co-lyricist Rosenblum was certain that other musical authors would have the same idea, and he wanted his show finished first. “As odd a subject as this seems, we have been told either directly or through the grapevine that at least three different well-known composers have considered this very idea for a musical,” he asserts. Fermat’s Last Tango chronicles how glory soon segued into embarrassment for Wiles when a hole was discovered in his proof. After another year of work, however, he managed to correct the flaw and redeem his name.

The musical is the latest theatrical venture to demonstrate the dramatic possibilities of science or math, following Michael Frayn’s Tony Award-winning play Copenhagen and David Auburn’s Proof. (In a rather amazing coincidence, Proof was the original title of Fermat’s Last Tango). “Mathematicians are very passionate about what they do, and many people don’t understand the passion of mathematics,” says co-lyricist and book writer Lessner, an actress and playwright who does most of the talking during our interview. “Professor Wiles thinks it’s interesting that we have keyed into that and are now trying to relay that in music—a passionate art form—so that the general public can get a sense of it.” Lessner drafted the original book of the musical in just two weeks as she nursed her infant son, Julian, with a Boppy pillow (which freed up her hands to write). Although the ensuing years brought numerous revisions, the fundamental structure never changed...

(To read the rest of the review, click on Theater Mania Review Below)

More Information

• Fermat's Last Tango, The Video
• Theater Mania Review
• Curtain Up Review
• Princeton Review
• Mathematical Fiction Review

All events are held in the Elebash Recital Hall, The Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Ave (at 34th Street)

The Science and the Arts series is presented by the Science Center and is part of the Continuing Education and Public Programs at The Graduate Center. Free and Open to the Public. For more information: phone: (212) 817-8215, email: continuinged@gc.cuny.edu or visit the web site http://web.gc.cuny.edu/cepp