Spelling Bee Tour 1.27.07

[x_FedUp]

Posted: 1/28/07 at 12:56pm

So a bunch of my friends and I bought tickets to the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee because when we went to the Colorado Thespian Convention my friend Trevor got an award for singing 'I'm Not That Smart." Granted because we're all student our seats were the second to last row in the 2nd Balcony.

So we got to the Temple Buell Theatre in Denver and Trevor and Erica tried to get in the show because it was Erica's B-day. Of course they didn't because we weren't in the Orchestra seats, but it was still fun. I was really excited to see the show because Jennifer Simard (Forbidden Broadway: SVU) and Sarah Stiles (Vanities).

I think I'll review by person:

Katie Boren (Marcy Parks): I always thought this character was a total brat, and I wasn't really proved wrong. She had a very pretty voice, but I wasn't really convinced that she didn't want to be the best. On her song (I Speak 6 Languages) they changed some of the lyrics which was interesting....

Miguel Cervantes (Chip Tolentino): Chip... Ahh Chip.... This character is amazingly hilarious. He got a lot of laughs, but Colorado is known to be very conservative so the Erection song didn't get as much applause at it deserves. The group that I was with was all depressed when he got kicked off, but my favorite part is when he comes back in the end and he says how he and MANY other came to enjoy his erections and then when he hold the trophy. All in all I though he had a good voice and good acting skills as well.

Alan H. Green (Mitch Mahoney): I NEVER imagined the character to be the way it's played on stage. I had only heard the character on the OBCR and from that he seemed like a REALLY cheerful gay guy. However Mitch really grew on me. His voice was probably the best male voice in the show and his acting was pretty good. I didn't think he went overboard which would have been really easy to do with the character.

James Kall (Douglas Panch): Bleh... I dunno. His acting was over the top which I really didn't like. The only good thing was when he had to use the word in a sentence, but then again that's just the script.

Eric Petersen (William Barfee): I didn't really like the way 'Magic Foot' was sung on the recording which made me not too fond of the character, but after seeing it live my opinion changed a little. The character is actually really sweet and I loved his magic foot routine when they went into slow-mo. When thing that could have been better was William seemed to start to like Olive almost instantly... I bit more leading up would have been nice. As for singing his voice was pretty good. He actually made me like 'Magic Foot.'

Jennifer Simard (Rona Lisa Peretti): OMG! She exceeded my expectation. I always liked the character from what I heard on the OBCR, but I loved the way Jennifer portrayed her and her voice is stunning! There was one thing I did have a problem with though: In "The I Love You Song" they did weird projection things where they'd be really soft and then really loud.... Oh well. Other then that her performance was the best. The comments she made about the extra spellers were hilarious and she also added stuff about Colorado which was pretty kick butt.

Sarah Stiles (Logainne Schwartzandgrubenierre): The voice on the OBCR was incredibly obnoxious so I was happy to hear someone else in the role esp. because Sarah was in Vanities with Megan Hilty. I thought she did an exceptional job. When she gets kicked off and goes to hug Mitch... I totally cried. Her voice was good, obviously not as good as it is in Vanities because it's not supposed to be, but it was WAY better then the OBCR and I really liked her lisp. PLUS she made a Grey's Anatomy comment and it was AWESOME!

Lauren Worsham (Olive Ostrovsky): Good voice, good acting, good performance. Her voice had a lot of power which was good being so far back I could actually hear her. Maybe this is the directing, but I don't like how her character is supposed to be quiet and shy and then for the chorus parts she's all jumpy and bouncy. I did like how I could tell that she genuinely missed her parents. Her acting was very real.

Michael Zahler (Leaf Coneybear): "He has cats........" One of the best lines EVER! I absolutely love this character. He's so sweet, but the way Michael acted it- I think he was a little over the top as well. Most of the time he was fine, but during 'I'm Not That Smart' when he goes in out out of the trance... I wasn't done well in my opinion. I loved how he had two little finger monster puppets and they fell in love. That was adorable. His voice was good too except for the part in 'I'm Not That Smart' when he makes it really low.

A Little Boy (Extra Speller # 4): They had this ADORABLE little boy come on as one of the extra spellers and his words were: cow, apoop, some word that can be spelled anyway you want and I REALLY hard word that starts with an X.

Overall I though it was a good performance. I was kinda pissed because they cut "Why We Like Spelling" and when Rona does a flashback scene and has to spell her word. There were some other small things that I heard were switched around, but it was a lot of fun and I laughed sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much.