Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Spelling Bee

Last night my company took us all out to dinner and a Broadway show to celebrate some of the awards our books have won and what a good year we've been having. The show was "Spelling Bee", a musical that's been around for a couple of years and which I'm sure you've heard a commercial for at least once on the radio.

The show was really great. It's an elementary school spelling bee so the theater is meant to look like a gymnasium. Sports banners, climbling ropes, basketball hoops. What's really cool about this show is that they pick a few volunteers to be in the spelling bee. It's not just yanking people out of the audience, you have to volunteer yourself and they only pick four people or so. But those people are up on the stage, sitting in the bleachers with the other "kids" and they get called up and have to spell words. It's funny because they get to spell words like "cow" for a little while, but eventully they get knocked out by real words. In last night's show, the last of the regular people was called up - this guy Sean. And they gave him some complicated word - I can't even repeat it- and he got it right! The crowd went wild and the vice principal who was reading the words had to call him right back to do another word, because you could tell it was the part in the play where they were supposed to get rid of him. Really funny. The actors played off the clothes and other details of the regular people, and used it as part of their bios when introducing the people before each word. Like for one woman they said, "Mary came in first place in a I Kinda Sort Look Like Sally Jesse Raphael contest at her school." So funny.

So for anyone who's looking for a play to go to, I recommend this one. Enjoy!