25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee REVIEWS

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 2/7/05 at 6:32pm

Broadway.com is up and it's very positive:


"The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee may be William Finn's least ambitious musical. It may also be his best. It's a slightly wicked, profoundly embracing reminder that heartbreak or joy or a new friend can be just a consonant away, and I have a hard time believing that anyone wouldn't love this show."


"Not every subplot is successful ....... and a ballad near the end about one contestant's parents only barely dodges sentimentality. But the overall caliber of onstage talent is alarmingly high--Ferguson, Craig and the sparkling Keenan-Bolger are just a few of the standouts--and they have a intelligent, surprising and very sweet piece to work with. The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is hardly the weightiest or most soul-scouring show in town. Being the freshest, most delightful show in town will have to do."
http://www.broadway.com/gen/Buzz_Story.aspx?ci=506774

Updated On: 2/7/05 at 06:32 PM

[wickedfan]

Posted: 2/7/05 at 6:47pm

I'm reviewing it this week for my school paper. But I refuse to let this review get the best of me. I don't agree with him that much anyway.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 2/7/05 at 6:49pm

Wickedfan,

Did you not like Spelling Bee?

[wickedfan]

Posted: 2/7/05 at 6:54pm

Haven't seen it yet. I'm seeing it later this week. What I meant was I don't want this review to have an impact on me when i see the show. I love William Finn, so I have a good feeling though I won't hate it.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 2/7/05 at 6:59pm

OK, I understand. While I also don't always agree with this reviewer, I think this is a very fair and positive assessment of the show -- fresh, delightful, but not entirely perfect. A real audience-pleaser that I think most people will really enjoy.

Updated On: 2/7/05 at 06:59 PM

[melissa errico fan]

Posted: 2/7/05 at 7:38pm

I hardly ever agree with this reviewer, but I agree with 95% of his review of this show. It is funny, charming, ackward (in a good way); with a great book and those brilliant Finn lyrics. I hope it can get a transfer before Tony time.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 2/7/05 at 8:11pm

Talkin Broadway is also very positive:

"Until someone invents a real time machine, we'll have to settle for the musical variety. The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, which just opened at Second Stage, is so dripping with childhood angst and insecurity that it could easily pass for another stage show based on Charles Schulz's Peanuts. But the show is wrapped up in so many good feelings and huge laughs that you'll have to just sit back, grin, and recall the trials and tribulations of your own youth."

"Sheinkin's treatment of the story of what happens to these kids, and their faculty overseers, during the Bee will keep you shaking your head in recognition while you're convulsing with laughter. It's difficult to ask much more of a musical comedy. Well, with the exception of fine musical numbers, and that's where The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee runs astray. William Finn has not matched in his songs the thorough psychoanalysis that Sheinkin has devised. Finn's songs are always attractive, melodic, and youthful in tone, so if he's never completely at sea in musicalizing these characters, he also never unveils the richness of his subjects here in quite the way he did in the Falsettos shows or A New Brain."

"The dutiful nature of Finn's score provides little impediment to enjoying the show; Sheinkin's writing and James Lapine energetic, school play-inspired direction carry the evening. Also making vital contributions are Beowulf Boritt's gymnasium set, Jennifer Caprio's colorful and character-rich costume designs, Natasha Katz's lighting, and Dan Knechtges's peppy choreography. And the six-piece band, playing Michael Starobin's orchestrations under Vadim Feichtner's musical direction, never sounds less than terrific."

"But it's the actors who bring the characters to life that provide the real, memorable heart of the show, finding the adults within the children and, as necessary, the children within the adults."

"If The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee isn't life-changing theatre, it's at least the kind of warm, winning show we should be glad we don't currently have to wax nostalgic about."
http://www.talkinbroadway.com/ob/02_07_05.html

[melissa errico fan]

Posted: 2/7/05 at 8:18pm

Very positive. I didn't agree with a lot of the comments made about Mr. Finn's music, but I can understand where they would come from. I was such a Marcy Park in high school.

[Plum]

Posted: 2/7/05 at 8:50pm

I'm so glad to see this is getting good reviews. It's the most fun I've had in a theater since Avenue Q. Of course, the big giant caveat on my review is that I saw the show in its second preview.

The design aspects of the show were all good- I especially loved the set, which perfectly evoked every public school gym I've ever been inside.

Jesse Tyler Ferguson was great as the quirky and slightly sad Leaf Coneybear, the constestant who really didn't actually win his school's bee. Dan Fogler was really funny as the stuck-up, sickly William Barfee, and managed to give the character a heart when the book called for it, as well.

Those two were the standouts for me, but the cast was wonderful all around. Derrick Baskin and Lisa Howard brought great singing voices to their characters, and Jay Reiss delivered his useless context sentences perfectly. Jose Llana also had a great voice and he acted well with what he had, but his character wasn't so well-defined.

Deborah S. Craig was really impressive, skills-wise, in her big solo song, but she really could have put a little more aggression into it. Sarah Saltzberg was earnest and as tightly wound as her hairdo (I loved that touch). And Celia Keenan-Bolger has a lovely singing voice and an appropriately hangdog expression throughout, but I thought the characterization could have been lightened a little to match the rest of the show.

As Harvey Fierstein pointed out at the Tonys, the book isn't usually the part people applaud in a good musical, so I was a bit surprised to find myself thinking throughout the show that the book was a real standout. I know there's been some, um...controversey, to put it nicely, about who really wrote the material, but the fact remains that it's really strong.

I was even more surprised to find that I wasn't really that impressed by the score, considering Finn's name was the reason I went to see the show in the first place. The music was just right in tone, I thought- light, bouncy, and rather reminiscent of Falsettoland- but almost none of it struck me as particularly beautiful or memorable. And no, I'm not a "hummable tunes" Nazi. I just expected something more than mere functionality from Finn.

When I saw the show, there were some flaws that I'm completely sure have been fixed by now- mistakes in intonation, dancing that seemed more chaotic than choreographed, stuff like that. Overall, I really enjoyed myself and I'd recommend the show to anyone except young children, mostly because of the post-intermission song about a certain bodily function. I wonder if the show should transfer to Broadway, though. With the audience participation, especially, it just feels like an Off-Broadway production. Maybe in a small theater that wouldn't drown it it could still work. Updated On: 2/7/05 at 08:50 PM

[melissa errico fan]

Posted: 2/7/05 at 9:05pm

Great review, Plum. Couldn't agree more.

I think that it could make it on Broadway. Mr. Finn is a renowned, acclaimed composer with a loyal fanbase. Plus, this show is great. It's just plain fun. Also, the audience participation would be fine. A lot of shows-"Dame Edna" and "Whoopi", to name two-have used it.

[StickToPriest]

Posted: 2/7/05 at 9:16pm

I can't wait to see this on Friday!!

[Plum]

Posted: 2/7/05 at 9:16pm

Oh, I know that audience participation isn't a new or all-too-unusual thing in Broadway productions- the sheer terror of sitting in the first few rows of The Boy From Oz comes to mind. But even though the cast is pretty big for an Off-Broadway production, the show feels small. People have been speculating that it could take the Eugene O'Neill if Good Vibrations closes soon, but I don't know if that would be a good idea.

Ooh, and Priest, I hope you like it. :) Updated On: 2/7/05 at 09:16 PM

[melissa errico fan]

Posted: 2/7/05 at 9:21pm

I could see it in the Eugene O'Neill. I thought "Hurlyburly" was eyeing it up for a transfer. The Plymouth could be free very soon, if the producers of "Brooklyn" would wake up and smell the coffee.

[Plum]

Posted: 2/7/05 at 9:22pm

I liked Margo's suggestion of Circle in the Square the best.

[melissa errico fan]

Posted: 2/7/05 at 9:26pm

That would be good. Too bad Sarah Jones already has that lined up for "Bridge and Tunnel". Or The Helen Hayes, but Jackie Mason's sure-to-be-awful new one man show is going to be produced there.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 2/7/05 at 9:26pm

I think Circle is being reserved for Sarah Jones' Bridge & Tunnel, but I'm not sure. Spelling Bee could work there or in an even larger Broadway house. While it's perhaps more ideally suited for a smaller house, the same was true for Avenue Q and it's doing fantastically well at The Golden.

[melissa errico fan]

Posted: 2/7/05 at 9:30pm

"Bridge and Tunnel" is moving into the Circle in the Square sometime in the late spring/early summer, most likely qualifying for next season's Tonys.

[magruder]

Posted: 2/7/05 at 9:32pm

See, this is why tearing down five Broadway theatres in 1982 to build one awful new theatre was a big mistake. Even the disgusting Bijou Theatre would be in hot demand right now!

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 2/7/05 at 10:11pm

The AP (Kuchwara) is a RAVE:

"How do you spell hit? Quite simple, really. "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee." This ingratiating, , which opened Monday at off-Broadway's Second Stage Theatre, has a lot of what has been missing from many new musicals in the last several years -- heart.

The show, with a funny, touching book by Rachel Sheinkin and a jubilant score by William Finn, celebrates the triumph of doing the best you can. Maybe not winning, but enjoying what you do. Not a bad lifetime philosophy."

"Finn, composer of the scores for "Falsettos" and "A New Brain," is an original. His music is quirky, a delightful mixture of pop and theatrical melodies with smart, savvy lyrics.

"Director James Lapine keeps the intermissionless show moving swiftly. Also on stage are three adults, including a former Putnam County spelling bee champion (Lisa Howard), who serves as a kind of mother hen to the contestants.

"Best of all, though, is the true outsider, played by a hilarious Dan Fogler, giving one of those breakthrough musical-comedy performances. This large, unraveling fellow is a quivering mass of resentment, a boy who, among other things, suffers from a rare mucus membrane disorder and is peanut intolerant. He also has an unusual way of spelling. The kid writes out the word first with his foot, which leads to Finn's most joyous musical number, "Magic Foot."


"... Like "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee," each one is a winner."

AP Review

Updated On: 2/7/05 at 10:11 PM

[BlueWizard]

Posted: 2/7/05 at 10:53pm

Student advance tickets aren't available online. How am I supposed to purchase tickets in advance when I'm in another city??

[rKrispyt]

Posted: 2/7/05 at 11:15pm

BlueWizard - I was kinda in the same situation last weekend. Here's the scoop - an hour before the show the box office sells student rush tickets (I was told whatever they have left is what they sell) at $20 each.

IF (as was the case in my situation) the show is sold out, then at 1:00 the box office starts taking names for a Student Rush cancellation list and a regular cancellation list. They're basically the same list and they'll ask as they go through which kind of tix you wanted. (wait for the catch, it's coming)

What they then do is go down the list as tickets become available and offer you the tickets at full price. After people wanting full price tix have been taken care of, THEN if they have more tix become available, they'll go down the list again for anyone who'd wanted student tix.

In my case my best friend (who, not to brag, seriously knows his ****) told me it was the best show he'd ever seen and the most fun he'd had ever at a show, so I felt I had to see it. I asked the gentleman when our name was called what our student rush tix chances were if I passed up the tickets, the other girl looked at the list and just shook her head. I actually didn't see many anybody but the woman in line directly behind me get into the show.

Soooo, long story short (too late, I know, I apologize) I'd keep calling to check that the show you're aiming to get student rush tix for isn't sold out - avoid a sold out show if you can, or call in advance and pay full price, as the only way to get the student rush tix is an hour before showtime...if they even have em'.

HOpe that helps somewhat.

It's amaaaaazing by the way - my friend was right, the most fun I've ever had at a show.
Kristy

[jesseeinstein]

Posted: 2/7/05 at 11:20pm

This show is amazing! I've seen it twice already! Everyone get down there and see it!!!!!!
-JEsse
p.s. I live in Toronto, Canada and with a chance to see tons of shows, I saw this one a second time-it's SO worth it!

[BlueWizard]

Posted: 2/7/05 at 11:55pm

Full price it is, then.

However, on the website they list both student rush and student advance tickets (there is a $5 difference). Can't students order tickets in advance and still get the discount?

[Plum]

Posted: 2/7/05 at 11:57pm

I think student advance means you can buy it as soon as the box office opens, while for student rush you have to wait until shortly before curtain. I think; I'm not sure.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 2/8/05 at 12:26am

Charles Isherwood, the #2 at the Times and Lead Off-Broadway critic, has apparently named it a "Critic's Pick" (one of only three shows he's given that honor to in the last several months). The full review isn't up yet, but here's the excerpt:

"This lovably inconsequential, entirely adorable new musical brings to the stage the culture’s current mania for celebrating that most revered of American virtues, the will to victory. A mock spelling bee, it pokes serious fun at its twitchy tween contestants in the loopy spirit of the movies "Waiting for Guffman" and "Best in Show" — but also pays affectionate tribute to these quirky young spelling titans. William Finn’s nimble, upbeat score provides the emotional underpinning for Rachel Sheinkin’s more satirical — indeed often riotously funny — book. Director James Lapine, Mr. Finn’s collaborator on "Falsettos," is also in impeccable form, managing to transform into virtues two of the theater’s most reliable pitfalls, namely audience participation and the usually ghastly conceit of adult actors playing kids."