Saturday, May 17, 2008

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

Posted by Laura / 2 comments » / , musicals, people

On the 15th, Johnathan and I headed down to Playhouse Square to see The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. I’ve been looking forward to this since we bought the tickets just after we saw Avenue Q in January.

We got to the theater fairly early, and I must admit, I don’t mind standing around in the theater lobby because it is a beautiful lobby. There was a flautist playing, which is fairly standard – every time we’ve gone, there has been someone playing some instrument. It’s nice to stand around and hear music before we get to see a show. Unfortunately, being a flautist (or at least a former flautist) myself, I wasn’t able to stand and enjoy her playing – I had to listen critically. Her low tones were lovely, but her high ones were thin and shrill. She fluffed quite a few notes and I was able to tell all too well when she made mistakes, even though I’d never heard the music before. It’s possible that she was nervous being around all those people who were milling about, though, so I imagine that was the cause of some of the tonal inconsistencies.

We originally had seats very close to the front, but they were for the week before, when I was initially scheduled to work 10-7, which would mean that I wouldn’t be able to get to the show in time for curtain. Johnathan called the theater and got our tickets moved to a week later, when I was working 8:30-5:30, giving me time to get down to Playhouse Square to see the show. As a result, our seats were moved, but instead of the usual moving far back into the rear of the theater, we were moved closer. As it turns out, we were in the front row on the right side. It was really great how close we were to the stage.

The cast we saw was excellent and funny. I had no complaints about them whatsoever. What was even more great was that two of them were Cleveland natives, and that always gives some energy to both the cast and the audience, increasing enjoyment of the show. Just like last time I saw it, I laughed, I cried and was thoroughly impressed with some of the improvisational moments that went on between the cast members. One particular thing worth noting, other than the two Clevelanders in the show, was that the boy who played Leaf Coneybear was Andrew Keenan-Bolger who is the younger brother of Celia Keenan-Bolger, who was in the original cast of this very show. Talk about keeping it in the family! That was a neat factoid (which many people may not have known or been able to put together unless they were fans of the show before seeing it on tour) and it was neat to see him act out that character. Leaf Coneybear and Olive Ostrovsky are my favorite characters in that show, I decided after watching it this time. It’s hard to really choose a favorite, though, because the characters are all so very lovable.

After the show, there was a Broadway Buzz just like we were lucky enough to experience after Avenue Q. There were three cast members scheduled to join us for it this time, but as they came out of the dressing room, most of them stopped to say hello and share with us. It was really neat seeing most of the cast members there, willing to talk with audience members about the show, about their experiences and other things. I was hoping it would be as enjoyable as the one after Avenue Q, and it had the potential to be, especially with so many amusing people, but thanks to a rather large group of private school students, we had the experience somewhat marred for us. They asked questions like “How long did it take to make the show?” and “Why do you make it so inappropriate?” That really bugged me. The show comes with a parental advisory that it isn’t appropriate for kids under a certain age, and to be perfectly honest, very little of what goes on in the show is misrepresentative to what goes on for kids that age. Adolescence isn’t exactly a smooth experience for most people. At any rate, I do rather wish that the students had been taken on a different night so that we might have enjoyed the Q&A session a bit more.

Overall, our experience was a good one. If it weren’t for precocious children and a theater director who is far too long-winded (we wanted to hear the cast, not the theater director), I would say it was an excellent experience.

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