Improv and audience interaction make this musical a unique experience each time
Six spelling bee contenders, four oblivious audience participants, a team of tough love comfort counsellors, and a panel of wacky judges will welcome you to the pandemonium of the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee at War Memorial Hall from March 7 to 10.
This year’s musical production by the student- and volunteer-run U of G campus club, Curtain Call Productions (CCP), isn’t the traditional musical audiences may expect. There’s still song and dance, but what makes Spelling Bee unorthodox is that it adapts to each situation, depending on how the actors and audience participants interact with each other.
“We have lines that we learn and cues and choreography, but because there’s an element of improvisation, you never know what show you’re going to get,” Alexandra Nunez, who plays Logainne Schwartzandgrubenierre, told The Ontarion. “Certain lines are going to change, the order of songs are going to change — it really keeps you on your toes.”
Before the show, audience members can sign up for a chance to become a spelling bee contestant. Four are chosen to join the cast onstage and get to test their spelling smarts.
During the dress rehearsal, I was given the opportunity to compete as one of the audience members. As a former sixth grade spelling bee champ myself, I was excited to have the chance to redo one of the regretful moments of my youth: misspelling the word “janiform” at the regional spelling bee and hearing the bell ring, signalling my loss.
At the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, I relived many of the moments portrayed in the musical: a competitor receiving a ridiculously easy word during their turn when you get a much trickier word, someone making a mistake by rushing through the spelling and not being allowed to start over and change the sequence of letters, and seeing the different competitors use (sometimes silly) strategies to spell out their word.
When I was called to the stage, a cast member gave me a numbered tag to wear and instructions on how to participate when it was my turn to spell. We were allowed to ask the following:
- The definition of the word
- To hear the word used in a sentence
- The word’s language of origin
- Or any other question that the judges deemed acceptable
Throughout the show, cast members would direct the audience participants to their seats, sweep us up into a wild dance number, and make up fun facts about us. I never knew what would happen in the next moment, but I felt assured that the cast would guide or prompt me when needed.
“[The improv] is up to the actors,” said director Allison Humeniuk. “In Spelling Bee there are two characters, Douglas Panch (played by Andrew Peng) and Rona Lisa Peretti (played by Emma Vanderkuyl), and they function as the emcees and adjudicators of the bee, so it’s [at] their discretion that when spellers are called what words they’re given and how much the cast interacts with them.”
During my first turn, I was asked to spell “colourful” — a word which was debated for its correctness due to the ambiguity of whether the spelling bee took place in America or Canada and was ultimately decided by a coin toss. After a few more rounds, I was the last audience participant standing and was finally bested by the word “pheochromocytoma,” which I have regretfully learned too late.
“The hardest word I learned to spell because of this musical is ‘lysergic acid diethylamide,’” said Trinity Lougheed, who plays Olive Ostrovsky. “If I sit there and think about it, I can probably get it, but now I can just (snaps fingers) whip it out.”
After each speller was eliminated, the cast sang a goodbye song as the speller was escorted offstage by the intimidating teenaged comfort counsellor, Mitch Mahoney (played by Diana Del Rosario), who awarded them a consolation prize.
There are hints of backstory from each character during act one, but act two is really where the audience gets to know the spellers. Each of the contestants — who are between the ages of 11 and 12 in the world of the musical but played by older actors — have flashbacks about how they ended up registering for the spelling bee. There’s the classic overachiever Marcy Park (played by Andrea Story), the micromanaged young child Logainne Schwartzandgrubenierre (Nunez), the nerdy William Morris Barfée (Michael Sharivker), the unexpected runner-up Leaf Coneybear (Kyle Thompson), the boy scout “Chip” Tolentino (Brendan Roberts), and shy but kind Olive Ostrovsky (Lougheed).
“Spelling Bee is a very cheerful musical,” said Del Rosario. “Hopefully people are going to come out of this with full hearts, reminiscing about their childhood.”
The musical 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee plays at War Memorial Hall on the University of Guelph campus from March 7 to 10.
Feature photo by Karen K. Tran/The Ontarion