Fearsome Foursome follows the quest of four elementary students as they work their way to success during their schools’ Operation Brainpower competition. Each student embraces their unique strengths as they work as a team to complete the challenges. One student has a change of heart and learns to accept his teammates despite their differences.
- Written by: Tom Long
- Audience: Grades K - 5
- Themes: Kindness, Inclusiveness, Stereotypes
- Meets PA Standards: 5.2, 9.1, 9.3, 11.2, 16.1-3
Fearsome Foursome: Scene 1
The audience meets Noah, a fifth grader who is not happy about his assigned team for Operation Brainpower, an annual competition at his school where students have to work together to complete a series of challenges. Noah makes assumptions about his teammates based on the very little that he knows about them and complains that he’ll have to carry the weight of his team during the challenges.
Fearsome Foursome: Scene 2
The audience meets the rest of the team as they work to come up with a team name. Ethan is on the spectrum, Sophie is blind, and Ava has recently moved from North Carolina. Despite Noah’s negative attitude, they come up with the name the Fearsome Foursome.
Fearsome Foursome: Scene 3
The team learns that they’ll face challenges in four categories: Engineering & Design, Math, Arts & Literature, and a Mystery Category. They’ll have to locate each challenge location after receiving a clue and they can ask the audience for help.
Fearsome Foursome: Scene 4
The first challenge is to build a self-propelled vehicle with a set of given materials. After Ethan is able to instruct his team with the knowledge he’s gained from a tv show, Noah decides to try to help him out by giving him advice about fitting in. Noah is the one who ends up learning something, though, as his teammates teach him that everyone is one of a kind and you shouldn’t have to fit in so you don’t get bullied.
Fearsome Foursome: Scene 5
The second challenge is a series of word problems that Ava is able to solve quickly because she loves math. Noah realizes that just because she sounds different than what he is used to and isn’t from where he is, that doesn’t mean that she knows any less than him or is any less smart.
Fearsome Foursome: Scene 6
The third challenge is to act out a scene from Shakespeare. Sophie is able to figure out which scene it’s supposed to be using technology geared towards accommodating her visual impairment. She’s also able to help the others understand the scene. Noah realizes that just because she is blind doesn’t mean that she can’t do all of the things he assumed she couldn’t.
Fearsome Foursome: Scene 7
The fourth challenge is to answer the question: what makes a person successful: Noah struggles with the answer until he stops to help someone in need and is given a copy of The World According to Mr. Rogers. After doing some reading, he realizes that the key to success is kindness. He apologizes to his team for his earlier behavior and lets them know that he likes them just the way they are.
