Recently, playwright and raconteur Kevin Kling was named “artist in residence” for Minnesota Public Radio. It’s a three-year position, for which he’ll develop original live programming, write some commentary for broadcast and host storytelling workshops around the state.

His first commission for MPR is “Of Mirth and Mischief,” a staged musical-theater production, which premiered at St. Paul’s Fitzgerald Theater this past weekend. If you missed the live version, the show will also air a couple of times over Christmas weekend on local public radio stations (one broadcast version  will be edited around Kling’s narration and the other, which will air on The Current, will showcase the production’s memorable soundtrack).

For the music in “Mirth,” Kling turned to his longtime friend Steve Kramer — an accordionist and composer best known, in these parts, for his stint with the Wallets, a well-regarded punk polka outfit from the late ‘80s. Kramer enlisted a terrific assortment of acclaimed local musicians to perform, notable among them vocalists Haley Bonar, James Diers (Halloween, Alaska), Aby Wolf and Jennifer Armour and guitarist Jacob Hanson.

The tale at the show’s center is set in the ‘60s: A 4-year-old boy is spending the holiday season in the hospital, away from his family and awaiting surgery. He copes with fear and homesickness by conjuring an imaginative wonderland for the kids in the children’s ward, re-imagining their clinical surroundings as realms filled with magic and legendary heroes, populated by elves, tricksters and fairies, kings, wise fools and wayward princesses. Kling spins yarns that are wry and heartfelt and perceptive, stories as rich and engaging as his fans have come to expect of him — he makes it all look effortless, joyful in the telling.

And Kramer has held his own with Kling’s marvelous stories; the music in the show marries with them beautifully. The songs are a catchy, varied mix — raucous, ethereal or toe-tapping swing — as the narrative demands. You can listen to these tracks now, even download them if you like; it’s worth giving them a measure of studied attention. Kramer and his fellow musicians put together an infectious set of tunes, worth listening to on their own. (I had “Nighty-Night to Brother” running through my head for hours after the show). Bonar, in particular, deserves a mention; she assumes a number of roles and pulls all of them off with aplomb, her vocals by turns seductive and poignant.

Don’t pass up the opportunity to listen to “Of Mirth and Mischief” this weekend — streaming online or in one of its broadcast iterations — it’s just delightful.

Listen to a couple of the show’s nine original tracks:

“Finn” from the “Of Mirth and Mischief” soundtrack, featuring Haley Bonar. Courtesy of MPR. “At the Hospital” featuring Jennifer Armour. Courtesy of MPR. While the stage show at the Fitz  has come and gone already, you can hear “Of Mirth and Mischief” broadcast this weekend on Minnesota Public Radio, on 91.1 Dec. 23 and on 89.3 The Current, Christmas Day. If you prefer, after they air, you can also stream the show online at www.mpr.org. For a limited time, you can download the production’s original soundtrack here.