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.

*Spelling Bee* preview and review: links

Over at Bloglander, The Inlander's scrolling moshpit of various blogs, you can read Q&A interviews with two cast members from Spokane Civic Theatre's current production (through Feb. 20) of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee: Lance Babbitt as William Barfee and Maureen Kumakura as Rona Lisa Perretti.

And then — be warned! — a VERY LONG, blow-by-blow account of how opening night went.

Partial review of *Putnam County Spelling Bee*

at Coeur d'Alene Summer Theater through June 26

(basically, the middle third of the review that will appear in The Pacific Northwest Inlander on Thursday, June 17)

... With the exception of the title song, composer/lyricist William Finn’s melodies aren’t particularly memorable. And this isn’t a glitz- or dance-heavy show. (It’s kids standing at microphones — not exactly a spectacle — though director Roger Welch maintains the flow with hyper-speed and slo-mo spelling sequences.) But in her book of the musical, Rachel Sheinkin is good at creating a sense of community, then building the tension before each speller performs.
The little mock-introductions that each speller receives — and the definitions they request when they’re up at the mic — are among Spelling Bee’s funniest lines. But there’s plenty of fun in the scripted parts of the show, too, as we follow the tribulations of our six contestants: the nerd, the Boy Scout, the unloved child, the multi-talented genius, the prodigy, the mystic hippie.
Playing the pressured-by-her-parents overachiever in “I Speak Six Languages,” for example, Yvonne Same demonstrates an impressive range of talents. She demonstrates a lot more than just fluency — martial arts, musicianship and other feats of physical prowess all made rapid-fire appearances.
The nose-picking nerd with his shirttail hanging out (Andrew Hartley, disgusting but vulnerable too) performs his “magic foot” spelling routine: He’s an oddball, but he’s going to stick to his oddball guns.
With nine actors playing twice that many characters, there’s a danger of repetition. But the show avoids predictable, one-after-another character revelations, and there are unexpected second-act sequences involving Jesus and the Taj Majal that propel the narrative unexpectedly toward satire and even compassion. With all the tonal shifts, cast members could afford to improve their diction: The CdA sound system can be harsh and blarey, and some of the rapid-fire details of characterization got muddled.
For all its displays of nerditude, Spelling Bee is a show with a heart. It’s effective whether or not you know or care about spelling bees, and it brings back all the fears and joys of youth.

[ photos by Young Kwak for The Inlander ]

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee continues at NIC’s Boswell Hall, 1000 W. Garden Ave., Coeur d’Alene, on Thursdays-Saturdays, June 17-19 and June 24-26, at 7:30 pm, along with a matinee on Sunday, June 20, at 2 pm. Tickets: $41; $37, seniors; $27, children. Visit cdasummertheatre.com or call (208) 769-7780.

The same production transfers to the Idaho Rep at UI's Hartung Theater, Sixth St. and Stadium Way, Moscow, Idaho, on Monday-Friday, June 29-July 2, at 7:30 pm. Visit uidaho.edu/class/irt