Cast: Katie Boren (Marcy Park), Miguel Cervantes (Chip Tolentino), Alan H. Green (Mitch Mahoney), James Kall (Douglas Panch), Eric Petersen (William Barfee), Jennifer Simard (Rona Lisa Peretti), Sarah Stiles (Logainne Schwartzandgrubenierre), Lauren Worsham (Olive Ostrovsky), Michael Zahler (Leaf Coneybear),
For complete info on the tour, see the official The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee website.
This hilarious one-act musical gives you a bizarre glimpse inside the minds of spelling bee contestants and shows you the contest from a very unique angle. Audience participation definitely helps make this show funnier than it would be otherwise. When we saw it, clearly the one audience member did better than he was supposed to. Jennifer Simard couldn't contain her laughter and it was a bit contageous, but it all worked well with the show. Once the audience participant realized that he was supposed to have missed a word by that point, he graciously missed the next word, starting a word that clearly started with an X with a Z. (Apparently, this was all staged, but they did a good job with it - fooled us. David's parents saw it and exactly the same thing happened.)
I highly recommend this funny musical. I won't buy the soundtrack, since the music isn't phenominal, but it's a very funny show, which makes it enjoyable. The fake definitions and origins of the word and the sentences they use when asked are hilarious. The cast is wonderful. I definitely recommend catching this show on tour or on Broadway, if you can. I'm sure it'll be running for a while around the country and on Broadway.
Grade: B+
At the end of our show, one of the audience participants got called back up, being told that someone in the audience had pointed out that her spelling was one of the correct spellings. She was then told that a guest would give her the next word. The guest was her boyfriend (now her fiance). He asked her to spell marry and said the sentence was "Will you marry me?" He had a rose and it was very sweet. I was impressed at the time and effort he went into to make sure that he could pull off this proposal. The coordination was very well done. It's nice to see someone going above and beyond to make sure their proposal is perfect. The ones on big screens at games are so boring. This was very unique. Not that I would have wanted to be proposed to that way, but the woman he proposed to was clearly floored and thrilled that he went through that effort for her. Definitely a great way to end the night.
Reviewed by Kat at the 1:41 PM show | 0 screams