Spelling Bee love!- Page 71

[LizzieCurry]

Posted: 1/13/07 at 1:27am

Wait, really?! In SF they turned it into a hysterical belt-fest about Scientology.

[liotte]

Posted: 1/13/07 at 10:41am

Last time in NY (march last year), it was turned into Seasons of Love from Rent.

I'd definitely love to hear a detailed review of the Chicago adult night!

[an87]

Posted: 1/13/07 at 9:32pm

I'm going to see the tour again for the second time tomorrow afternoon, and I'd really love to try to be a guest speller. If I've seen the show already though, will I not be picked? I could lie, but I'd feel kinda bad since I met the cast and everything...

[commasplice]

Posted: 1/13/07 at 11:56pm

I have no idea what people want to know, so I’ll just go through the things I best remember. I know that some of these overlap with the SF and NY adult nights. And I have no idea what words we’re not allowed to say on here, so there might be some random starring There is also no rhyme or reason to the order of this. I attempted chronological order, but mostly, I was jotting things down as I thought of them. (And just as fair warning, it ended up a LOT longer than I thought it would, and I apologize in advance. I guess my memory is better than I thought. Anyone else who was there can correct me if my memory is faulty.)

Christine Bunaun, the Rona u/s, was on for Roberta Duchak. I really liked her (she was no nonsense, but also kind and sympathetic), as well as Gregory Mills (the new Panch). The audience was great; everyone was into it.

Leaf mooned the audience as they all got into their pose during the opening song. The applause between “Unlike idiots, we ideate” and Rona’s definition of ideate stopped the show for a few moments.

(Some) statements about the guest spellers (I can’t remember their names, but it was nothing pun-able):
Speller 1 (Male, who tried to come up onstage before Rona even announced the names; got a good reaction from the audience): “(name)’s vague resemblance to Vince Vaughn almost got him a hand job from an eighth grader."
Speller 2 (Female): “This is (name)’s third year at the bee, but her first with p*bes.” “(name)’s personal motto is, ‘Once you go black, you never go back.’”
Speller 3 (Male, later referred to as “Banana Republic Guy” by Chip): “(name)’s mantra is, ‘You don’t need a good haircut to get action.’”
Speller 4 (Female and last speller standing; was wearing a black and white dress with a sweater): “(name) wears black and white patterns to distract the other spellers from her t*ts.” “(name)’s parents make her spell for three hours a day. They’re assholes.”
One of the male spellers (I forget which) “was kicked out of Boy Scouts for eating a Girl Scout. (pause) Cookie!”

Olive’s Halloween costume was a tossed salad.

Words included indigent, capybara (as always; sentence this time was, “Upon hearing about the size of the capybara, Richard Gere said, ‘Sign me up!’”), Mexican, hau (approximate definition: a piece of foreign currency – I forget the country – ten of which add up to a dong; approximate sentence: “(name) held up his ten hau proudly and proclaimed, ‘With my dong, I shall feed my family.”), onager, satiated (the last audience speller word; she absolutely butchered it. It was painful. The sentence, though, was along the lines of “After a night of d*ck jokes and ethnic slurs, the satiated audience hailed cabs back to the North Shore.” Oh snap, Panch.). The cue word for “Pandemonium” was “finger.” The definition was Panch yelling “HEY DAD!” and making a certain obscene gesture. The number itself included Barfee humping the desk and Marcy, instead of taking the spelling cards into the audience, taking out a dildo from Rona’s bag and running out into the audience with it.

Before “Pandemonium,” Chip was introduced with, “Isaac ‘Chip’ Berkowitz is grateful he didn’t inherit his father’s nose.” Panch pronounced “omphaloskepsis” in a sort of old crazy Jewish man voice – if you’ve ever heard Stephen DeRosa’s one-man “The Baseball Game” from Falsettos, it was similar to his Mendel voice. Every time he said the word, he said it in that voice. When Chip asked about an alternate pronunciation, Panch replied with, “Yes…if you’re a homo.”

Chip threw more condoms than candy during “My Unfortunate Erection.” There were people around us who hadn’t seen the show before and thought the song was written especially for this show.

“Woe is Me” had a few revised lyrics; instead of “She would like to meet me when I’m grown…” it was something along the lines of she was a product of a love that was secret and sordid, but in the end, her mother was glad that Logainne wasn’t aborted (I know “sordid” and “aborted” were the rhyme words).

Marcy had red Hello Kitty panties on that she flashed throughout “I Speak Six Languages.” The Jesus scene was appropriately altered to reflect the change in Chip’s nationality. It was something like this:
Marcy: Jesus! You ARE Jewish!
Jesus: Oh! Am I showing? (looks down)
And then the usual conversation about the word…and then the end:
Jesus: Now Marcy, when you start to have sex, remember to use contraception. But don’t tell anyone I told you.

Marcy was probably also the victim of the worst ethnic jokes. The sentence for onager (“a hot Asian ass”) was, “Billy picked up the phone and called 1-800-ONAGER”). Next, she was introduced by Rona with “Marcy Park spell long time!” (I know this was in SF); the word was “miso” and the sentence was predictably “Miso horny,” but Panch said it everything but the definition in a stereotypical very-very-badly-dubbed-kung-fu-movie voice, followed by “Verreh good! Verreh good!” when she spelled it right. Before her final word, Panch called out, “Chinese girl!” (no answer from Marcy) “Japanese girl!” (no answer); Barfee leaned over and whispered loudly, “I think he means you.” The word was “origami.” (See Jesus conversation above.)

Logainne’s rant began with, “This bee is dirtier than Britney Spears’s va-jay-jay!” The rest I don’t remember word for word, something along the lines of, “She finally found the panties store. Maybe her baby drove her. But I believe that she was making a political statement. Every time Britney showed her shaved c**ter, she was saying that she was anti-Bush! When I grow up, I want to be a statement. Hm, I wonder how I’m doing on the puberty front…” and she turned a little bit towards the moderator table and began to undo her belt; Panch freaked out and then Rona returned (again, not exact, just the best I can remember it). In Panch’s own rant after “sluice,” he referred to Mitch as “Milli Vanilli” (and was subsequently dragged offstage as usual).

Mitch was my favorite part of the show. He sounded great, and his facial expressions and reactions were priceless. He told the kids to, “Get the f*ck up” for the Pledge, and his rant was about how even though he has a Master’s degree, he could only get work as a substitute teacher because of his braids. When he told a snotty white kid with weed to “Just say no,” the kid told his dad that Mitch had the weed and offered it to him and that’s why he was on parole. The worst part, though, was that he had to be with the same bitch who beat him at the Bee 22 years ago (referring to Rona).

One of the most memorable exchanges was the name confrontation between Panch and Barfee. After Barfee intentionally mispronounced Panch’s name, Panch yelled, “Listen, man-t*ts, it’s DOUG PANCH,” to which Barfee replied, “Hey, pigf*cker, it’s WILL BARFEE.” Silence for a moment, and then Mitch: “Sit your fat ass down.”

Futures, in brief:
Panch: his new passion in life was Mitch Mahoney. Over the years they went into the mountains to hunt and (air quotes) “fish.” “I WISH I COULD QUIT YOU, MITCH.”
Rona: professional Civil War reenactor turned porn star
Mitch: Won $17mil in a lawsuit against Arby’s after they accused him of stealing a roast beef sandwich
Chip: colorful sexual history, culminating in a merit badge in fisting
Leaf: “Leaf Coneybear wrote CATS.”
Marcy: auctioned off her virginity off eBay, dropped out of college, married a black man, and won a Nobel Peace Prize for her initiative “We Don’t All Look the Same”
Logainne: complete psychotic break; fell in love with a baked potato, which she was eventually able to marry under a law passed by President Barack Obama
Barfee: attempted to give up his place at Nationals to Olive so he could get with her; she turned his advances down, but in the end, he became incredibly well-hung and a specialist in the combined science of gynecology and podiatry (the phrase “pootie tang” was in there somewhere)
Olive: after turning down Barfee, divorced her parents, got a sex change, and founded a school for second-place winners at Berkley.

If there’s anything else you’re curious about, ask (I know I didn’t mention much about Olive or Leaf, but I loved them both. When Leaf fell off the bleachers, instead of saying, “I fell,” he pointed to the audience speller who was sitting next to him and said, “She pushed me.”). Everyone was great; I had a lot of fun, though I really missed “The I Love You Song.” I hope they do another one in the future. And again, sorry about the length. You get a cookie if you made it this far.

Updated On: 1/13/07 at 11:56 PM

[liotte]

Posted: 1/14/07 at 12:24am

Awesome review, thank you!

[liotte]

Posted: 1/14/07 at 10:37pm

Sold out audience tonight in NYC!

I forgot it was a holiday weekend, luckily I won the lotto and was able to see Rory and Jacqui go on tonight. They were both great, as were all of the regular old timers.

Really looking forward to adult night next week!

[Anthony3]

Posted: 1/14/07 at 11:46pm

I was also there tonight! Jacqui Polk and Rory O'Malley were fantastic as Logainne and Leaf!

[LizzieCurry]

Posted: 1/14/07 at 11:56pm

Thanks, commasplice!

Sounds very similar to how it was done in SF. I think Logainne's altered lyrics were something like "she's so glad that I never was aborted."

[an87]

Posted: 1/15/07 at 1:00am

I saw the tour for the second and last time in Seattle tonight, and it was amazzzing!

Understudy Angelica-Lee Aspiras was on for Katie Boren as Marcy, and she did a very good job. She didn't get quite as many laughs as Katie did for the beginning few jokes, but she rocked it during "I Speak...". While she was standing near the piano, she did this crazy riff and everyone started cheering.

Sarah Stiles (Logainne) and Lauren Worsham (Olive) have officially won my heart and made this show perhaps my new favorite. Lauren is such a sweet Olive, and she was actually crying real tears during the I Love You Song. Sarah is just hilarious. I was nervous about seeing a different Logainne after watching all of Sara Saltzberg's online video stuff and loving them, but Sarah did such an amazing job. Her Woe is Me Reprise is so touching, she's practically crying during it.

The guest spellers tonight were okay. None of them were particularly funny. One dad-looking guy starting laughing like crazy when Leaf's word was "acouchi". It was pretty darn funny. One of the women was trying to be an actress and making a lot of overexaggerated faces which was really quite annoying. Some middle aged woman had a huge hair-sprayed like crazy hairstyle, so her introduction was "... was eliminated from the 24th Annual spelling bee for hiding a dictionary in her hair." The dad guy got "... intimidates the other spellers by dressing like their father." Can't remember what the other two got.

So yeah, it was a really great time. I was in the front row this time which was unbelievable. Its too bad that the tour is hitting all of these huge theaters (the Paramount in Seattle has 3 balconies...) because I'm sure the people up high are not getting as much out of the show as they could be if they could see all the details.

But yeah, wonderful production, wonderful cast, try your hardest to catch the tour if you can.

[banana]

Posted: 1/15/07 at 10:55pm

the show in ny on sunday night was so great! the understudies were fantastic i was so impressed!

[liotte]

Posted: 1/17/07 at 12:41pm

Adult nights scheduled! A little late on BWW, but at least it's up!

Who is going on Sunday??

https://www.broadwayworld.com/viewcolumn.cfm?colid=15089 Updated On: 1/17/07 at 12:41 PM

Posted: 1/17/07 at 1:01pm

Liotte, is there any form of rush/lotto for the adult nights? Are the policies the same as normal nights? I'd like to go to one of the shows, but I definitely can't afford $50-100 for a ticket.

[liotte]

Posted: 1/17/07 at 1:03pm

They still have lotto, but the box office said there probably would not be rush available. They will have standing room if they sell out.

[MotorTink]

Posted: 1/17/07 at 1:12pm

grrr..I have my mom's b-day on sunday night and I'll be in FL for the other adult night.... I swear the spelling bee gods don't like me!

[liotte]

Posted: 1/17/07 at 2:22pm

Tink, you have to see the regular Bee before you can see Adult night!!!

[LizzieCurry]

Posted: 1/17/07 at 2:33pm

Well, one of my friends saw the Bee for the first time on an adult night and had a blast, so it still works.

[wickedrentq]

Posted: 1/17/07 at 8:56pm

I went to the Bronx Zoo today and saw an acouchi and a capybara. I was quite excited, though my friends didn't understand why. Still they were amused as Leif was when they saw that we were looking at acouchis.

[HumATune]

Posted: 1/17/07 at 9:18pm

Here’s a question to ponder:

What happens if an actor flubs a line and spells a word wrong that’s scripted to be spelled correctly?

[liotte]

Posted: 1/17/07 at 11:04pm

I've seen it happen. A few times. They pretend they got it right and the show goes on.
Updated On: 1/17/07 at 11:04 PM

[Sifiboy31]

Posted: 1/20/07 at 10:53pm

NOOOOOO!!!!!

Chicago's 'Spelling Bee' to Play Final Show on March 25
Back to the Article
by BWW News Desk



Chicago’s company of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee will host the final competition at the Drury Lane Theatre Water Tower Place on Sunday, March 25. The widely acclaimed and Tony award-winning musical comedy will end its run after over 400 performances spanning a year in the Windy City.

"The Chicago production of Spelling Bee has been an unqualified success and we are thrilled with the response and support from audiences and critics alike over this past year," explains producer David Stone. “The decision to close was a difficult one but we all wanted to end on a high note.” The Chicago company of Spelling Bee started performances on March 28, 2006. Recouping initial investment costs in a matter of weeks, the sitdown production has experienced a longer engagement than any other production of Spelling Bee outside of New York.

According to press materials, "Spelling Bee audiences have swarmed from across North America to see the show in Chicago, representing an impressive list of facts and figures covering the run. During the course of a year and over 400 performances, 21,400 words will have been offered to spellers at the microphone with word pronouncer Vice Principal Douglas Panch preparing sentences and definitions on over 8000 notecards. 1600 audience participants from places as far away as Alaska and Australia and neighboring districts as close as Lakeview and the Loop will have proved how well they spell as guest volunteers in the Bee."

"In the hilariously hip musical comedy, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, six young people in the throes of puberty, overseen by grown-ups who barely managed to escape childhood themselves, learn that winning isn’t everything and that losing doesn’t necessarily make you a loser."

Spelling Bee continues through March 25 only at Chicago’s Drury Lane Theatre, located at 175 East Chestnut Street.

Individual tickets range in price from $25 - $69.50 and are available at the Drury Lane Box Office (175 East Chestnut Street) as well as all Broadway In Chicago Box Offices (24 W. Randolph St., 151 W. Randolph St. and 18 W. Monroe St.), through the Broadway In Chicago Ticket Line at [phone], at all Ticketmaster ticket centers or online at www.ticketmaster.com.

[LizzieCurry]

Posted: 1/20/07 at 10:54pm

Welcome to a couple of days ago!

[liotte]

Posted: 1/21/07 at 7:28am

Yay, Adult Night in NYC tonight!

[liotte]

Posted: 1/21/07 at 10:37pm

Ok, adult night tonight was the best of the 5 I have been to, it was absolutely hysterical! A lot of new words that have never been used before, a few of the old jokes, lots of new ones (Grease Academy, LOL), but just a fantastic evening and loads of fun!

[crzyrocket]

Posted: 1/21/07 at 11:03pm

liotte,

Would love to hear more details about Adult night!

[liotte]

Posted: 1/21/07 at 11:21pm

"Does it also say that I give manicures at night, and that I'm great at dry cleaning, and that I drive a Honda?" -Marcy Park