For those not familiar with the show, it tells the story of six mitsfits at a local Spelling Bee, and their quest to win the Bee. For these six misfits we had the original Broadway cast, which is rare in Los Angeles these days. However, these six aren’t the only participants in the Bee: there are also four audience members drawn at random, who sink or swim on their own. In the first half of the Bee, you clearly know who will win (the cast members) and who will lose — the fun part is learning the back-stories for the competitors, and seeing the crazy introductions the writers have — both for the cast members and the audience participants. Evidently, there are different words given to audience participants each show, with extremely funny definitions (for example, today someone got “mexican”). The definitions (and the use of the words in a sentence) is hilarious. The second half of the show is the serious competition, with the final five contestants being winnowed down. During this part you learn more about the kids and see how they grow — and what is really inside of them. I should also note that the writers tailor the background schools of the characters to local schools, and have topical and local jokes. Translation: they do their homework.
The six contestants in the Bee are:
- Marcy Park (Deborah S. Craig), an Asian overachiever, who knows
fivesix languages, excells in sports (and everything else), and who is driven to win the bee. - Leaf Coneybear (Jesse Tyler Ferguson), a second-runner up who got to the competition because the kids in front of him had to attend a Bat Mitzvah. Comes from a hippie family, in this show, from Topanga Canyon.
- William Barfée (Dan Fogler), an eccentric character who spells words before saying them with his “magic foot”, who is allergic to peanuts and everything else, and who is probably like someone you knew in your high school.
- Olive Ostrovsky (Celia Keenan-Bolger), an isolated newcomer to the Bee, whose parents seem to be taking out their agressions through her, and so she finds the dictionary a safe place to hide.
- Logainne Schwartzandgrubenierre (Sarah Saltzberg), the product of two dads who are pushing her to succeed… however she can.
- Chip Tolentino (Jose Llana), last year’s winner, a fearce competitor… until other problems rise up to distract him.
Rounding this out are Rona Lisa Peretti (Lisa Howard), the mistress of ceremonies and the #1 realtor in Putnam County; Douglas Panch (Jay Reiss), the vice-principle serving as judge, and Mitch Mahoney (Alan H. Green), who is doing his community service by comforting kids when they lose. Also onstage was the conductor/pianist, Jodie Moore.
Here’s a clip of this cast at the Tony awards a few years ago. It does give an example of the cleverness of the writing, especially for the word definitions:
Of course, with the original Broadway cast, they did a wonderful job. Some of them were looking a bit long in the tooth for the roles they were playing, but I would rather have the talent. You could also tell they enjoy doing this show — they were just having fun up there. Especially fun was the reaction of the audience participants, in particular, what had to be a 10 year-old boy named Dakota…. who actually spelled words they expected him to miss, such that they had to give him an extra one to get him out when they needed to. Quite fun.
In the technical area… the show had music and lyrics by William Finn (who also did Falsettos and A New Brain), book by Rachel Sheinkin. It was conceived by Rebecca Feldman, with additional material by Jay Reiss. Set design was by Beowulf Boritt, costumes by Jennifer Caprio, Lighting by Natasha Katz, Sound by Daniel Moses Schreier, and Orchestractions by Michael Starobin. It was directed by James Lapine. Tomorrow night is the last performance.
So, what’s coming up on our theatre calendar? We have a short break while we’re off to Nashville on vacation, although we’re debating going to the Grand Old Opry… but the only show we are free to see would be Restless Heart on 7/3. When we return, it is “Jersey Boys” at the Ahmanson Theatre on 7/15 @ 7:30pm; “Can-Can” at The Pasadena Playhouse on 7/28 at 8:00pm; “Beauty and the Beast” at Cabrillo Music Theatre on 8/4 @ 2:00pm, and the DCI 2007 World Championship Finals in Pasadena on 8/11 @ 5:00pm . I’ve also ordered season tickets for the Ahmanson, as discussed here. We’re also planning to get tickets to “Zanna Don’t” at the West Coast Ensemble (waiting for them to show on Goldstar). We’re also debating the Hollywood Bowl… in particular, possibly Bernstein/Copland/Gershwin on 8/2, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy on 8/24-25, or American Originals on 9/11.
