BW+Spelling+Bee+Response

1.	I grew up watching Roger and Hammerstein’s musicals with my family, so I have a love for any and all musicals. Therefore, my favorite aspect of this play was the music. All the songs were very entertaining and each of them told us a lot about the character singing at the time. For example, when Olive sang with her parents about how much they love her, we learned that she wants more than anything to impress them and for them to just be there for her. Also, I loved the opening and closing of the play with the same song about the “25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.” It was a very majestic song that really captured the audience. 2.	The producers of the play did a spectacular job with the advertisements. They copied the idea from the popular TV show, “Glee,” even using the same fonts as “Glee” and a similar color scheme with a variety of bright colors. “Glee” advertisements also use separate pictures of each of the characters making the symbolic loser “L” on their foreheads. This play used the same idea, but had each person creating the letter “B” with their hands instead. This advertisement was a brilliant idea because “Glee” is a very popular TV show, and a large number of UGA students would recognize the reference. 3.	Every character’s costume did a great and humorous job of reflecting their personalities. Lgoainne’s costume, for example, showed her eccentric personality and young age, while on the other end of the spectrum, William Barfee’s costume kept him prim, proper, and nerdy. We were almost instantly able to tell what each character was like at the opening of the play by simply seeing the costumes. I also liked the addition of a number to each costume during the bee. It was symbolic of the students’ success in the bee, and as each person failed, they were forced to give up their number. This also added to the humor of the play since the numbers were so large and awkward. 4.	One of the funniest aspects of the play for me was the allusions to current events. Throughout the play, some of the characters would talk to each other and to the audience about current things and ideas in music, television, movies, and other popular things. For example, Logainne had a short speech about how she supported Bristol Palin’s appearance on “Dancing with the Stars” and about her ironic support of abstinence. Mrs. Perretti also introduced each of the audience bee competitors with funny facts, such as, “She loves Taylor Swift and therefore must hate Kayne West,” or “He tried out for the role of Edward Cullen but was turned away fro not sparkling enough.” All of these comments were extremely funny. 5.	This play was the first that we have seen for this class that was truly presentational. The actors and characters know that they were performing for an audience and therefore interacted with audience members. They even brought up four audience members onto the stage to participate in the bee. I also liked that they threw candy into the audience, danced with audience members, and addressed quite a few of their comments and songs directly towards us. The presentational feel of the play added a lot to the humor and entertainment and made the audience feel special and included.
 * __Spelling Bee__- Positive Aspects of Production**

1.	I didn’t really like the people that were brought up from the audience to participate in the bee. It was pretty obvious that instead of choosing random audience members, they ad planted the four participants in the audience ahead of time. Even though they tried to act clueless onstage during the bee and surprised when their names were called to come up, they knew too well what to say on stage and their surprised emotions seemed forced. Also, they completely left the theater after being disqualified from the bee rather than returning to their seats, which was a huge giveaway that they were planned. I think the play would have been funnier if completely random audience members had been chosen instead. 2.	All the actors onstage had microphones on their foreheads so that the audience could hear every word they said. However, these microphones were very obvious and very distracting on those actors whose hair didn’t disguise it well enough. I first noticed it on Logainne, and it was a huge distraction from everything she was doing until I figured out what it was. The microphone would be a great idea if it was better disguised on everyone and didn’t look like the actor had something taped to their forehead. 3.	Some of the actors and actresses seemed to enter and leave the stage randomly throughout the play, and it was quite distracting. For example, I saw William Barfee sneak on and off the stage multiple times while the other actors were spelling. We don’t know where he was going, but it was definitely noticeable when he was absent from the stage, and then I always saw him sneak back on. Also, when the actors playing Mrs. Perretti and Vice Principal Panch changed to play other characters, like Olive’s mom and dad, or Logainne’s fathers, their exits were noticeable to the audience. We were left wondering where they went until they reappeared on stage in a different costume. 4.	The set of the play was very well designed to show us that it is set in a high school gymnasium. However, the basketball hoop on stage didn’t fit the rest of the set. Rather than looking realistic with 90 degree angles on the backboard, the goal looked cartoon-esque with slanted lines rather than horizontal and vertical lines. The cartoon-like quality did not fit with the rest of the setting, which, even though it was meant to be exaggerated and funny, had a realistic feel to it. The idea of having the goal on stage is a good one to reiterate the fact that the set is in a gym, but the silliness of how it appeared did not go well with the set as a whole. 5.	Towards the middle of the play, the characters of Logainne, Olive, William, Leaf Coneybear, and Marcy Park all walk in a circle and spell into the microphone to a tempo set by a gock block being played by a band member. This is a great idea and was very entertaining, but the actors had trouble keeping to the tempo set by the gock block. With a music background, this was extremely distracting for me when they would be spelling to a different tempo than the one set. However, this fault could be easily fixed with more practice and was a very minor one in the production.
 * __Spelling Bee__- Negative Aspects of Production**