Last night, Kathy and I attended Union Grove High School’s production of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, a hilarious and imaginative musical that Kathy saw on Broadway – but which I did not. (I went and saw the powerful drama Doubt instead.) She liked it enough that she saw it a second time in Chicago- but last night was my first encounter with the show…. and I had no idea what to expect except for a vague notion of audience participation being part of the mix. We were happy to go because a young friend of ours, Conner Benson (who was a tremendously moving Tiny Tim at the Racine Theater Guild a few years back) was singing one of the lead roles and we knew he would be spectacular- and I knew from past experience that Union Grove H.S. has a strong music and theater department. So I was going with very high expectations but also with a very real fear that I would be snoring by the end of the overture because it’s been such a long and draining week.
I need not have worried.
First of all, the show itself is a riot- full of energy and clever wit- and I was on the edge of my seat, taking in every bit of it, right to the end.
But there was an even more important reason why I was not even tempted to nod off. That’s because Kathy encouraged me to sign an “audition” card- which are filled out by anyone in the audience who is willing to be brought up on stage and participate in the performance. You give information like age, occupation, hobbies, favorite vegetable, etc. There was quite a tall stack of these cards filled out by the time I got there, so I had no expectation of being one of the “lucky” few. . . but then, right after the show began, the hostess read off the names of ten people- and lo and behold, my name was one of them. And right then and there, we whose name were called were summoned to the backstage wings, where we received our instructions: have fun, when your name is called, walk to the microphone at the middle of the stage and speak right into it, no matter what word they give you to spell, ask for its definition, and then ask that it be used in a sentence. (Some of the funniest moments in the show come in the definitions and contextual sentences.) We were then to try and spell the word correctly. If we were right, we were to head back to the bleachers onstage. If we were wrong, we would be escorted offstage. And our last instructions were this: Do Not Act. Evidently, some people who do the audience participation thing try to be funny – and end up NOT being funny at all. We were to consider ourselves the ultimate Straight Men.
And what ensued after that was a lot of fast-moving fun. . . including a little sequence where the cast dragged us downstage to join them in an energetic dance- and of course we didn’t know any of the moves and probably looked completely stupid. (judging from the side-splitting laughter of the audience.) What was even funnier was the little summaries of each audience member as we headed to the microphone to spell our word. (As one young man answered the call, the hostess intoned “Eric let his sister cut his air today.”) And when my name was called to head to the microphone and spell a word, the hostess said “Greg has evidently forgotten the fashion principle that Vertical Stripes are slimming.” (I was indeed dressed in a shirt with horizontal stripes.) I was then given the word “Dengue” – and slaughtered it – and was led offstage as the regular cast serenaded me with one of their “you’re a loser” songs. (My compensation for being an onstage participant? A juice box.) And during intermission and after the performance, I couldn’t believe how many people went out of their way to say how well I had done. . . even though all I had managed to do was look klutzy and stupid. But then again, that was the point, so I was only to willing to oblige.
By the way, the rest of the performance was quite entertaining- and although most of it is hilariously funny and silly, there are some poignant moments as well (much to my surprise.) And our friend Conner was absolutely brilliant in his role – and his performance alone made us so glad that we had traveled through the fog to visit the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.
pictured above: In mid-dance. By the way, I don’t know if it’s just a coincidence that I was given the largest number of any of the audience contestants. I wonder if they thought I really was 90 and chose the number for me very specifically.
By the way, the very first difficult word you hear in this play, when the hostess is recalling her past triumphs as a speller, is the word Syzygy. . . (pronounced Sih- zih- jee) . .. which coincidentally is the name of the team which won the Racine County Spelling Bee two years in a row, the team of which I was part of the team for its first victory. That was a more triumphant night for me than last night was.