Civic's *Spelling Bee* advances to national finals

The Civic's production of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

has won the Washington state community theater championship and is

going to the national finals in Rochester, N.Y., in late June.

Spelling Bee dominated at this weekend's Kaleidoscope theater

festival, winning seven of 12 awards in all and, most importantly, the

overall production award. Even better (from the Civic's point of

view), none of the other three states in Region IX of the American

Association of Community Theatre sent representatives -- which means

that, in effect, Spelling Bee gets to skip right past regionals and go

directly to the national competition.

ACT Richland (an auditioned group of high school students from the Tri

Cities) won the Excellence in Company Creativity award for its

production of Don Zolidis' !Artistic Inspiration, about two hack

writers trying to create a produceable and therefore awful play.

Bremerton Community Theatre won best set design and the Treasure Award

for Arthur Miller's All My Sons.

For its production of Doug Wright's creepy two-hander about a real

estate agent showing a wealthy but sinister man around a huge mansion

where recently some horrible things have happened, Wildwood Park, the

Richland Players won for best sound, best lighting and best direction.

Wildwood Park was also named the alternate production for advancing on

to Rochester.

Spokane Civic Theatre made the most of its home court advantage,

winning for best costumes (Jan Wanless), best choreography (Kathie

Doyle-Lipe), best design and production team, best ensemble, "Magic

Moment" (an adjudicator-selected award for most compelling episode

within a play, given to Lacey Bohnet for her lead singing in "The I

Love You Song") and Outstanding Performance (Mark Pleasant as Leaf

Coneybear, the hippie speller who goes into trances) -- along with the

all-important "Company Advancing to the National Festival" award.

Doyle-Lipe, who directed the show, reports that in the three months before the national competition, the Civic will probably schedule "a couple" of Spelling Bee performances -- both to keep the performers sharp and to serve as fundraisers. After all, it will probably cost in excess of $30,000 to  send two dozen people (cast, crew and band) to Rochester for a week.

Visit the Washington State Community Theatre Association blog for more

information. Visit "Stage Thrust" at Bloglander, too.