FM+Spelling+Bee

1. Music: The music was very entertaining. There were many songs, obviously since it was a musical, and a lot of them were catchy. Such as “Pandemonium”, that song was definitely pandemonium, where everybody is singing, and they are dancing all over the stage. It definitely represented the title very well. I liked the song that Leaf sang called “I’m not that smart.” I thought that was very entertaining and funny. Each speller had a song that they each sang which represented their character or how they spelled, such as Barfee’s song which showed how he spelled by air-writing them out with his foot. His foot had the “Magic touch.”
 * __ 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee __**
 * // Pros: //**

2. Comedy: The show was very funny. There were a lot of comical remarks. Almost all the definitions of the words they gave were hilarious. For example, someone (I think someone from the audience who participated in the spelling bee) was given the word “Mexican” to spell. The definition was guacamole. That was funny. And they had a “black Jesus”. I think that African American actor who played the roles of someone who had to do community service, a “black Jesus”, and a gay dad added even more to the comedy part of the production. Leaf was really funny because he had such a high pitched voice when he sang and spoke, but when he starts spelling, all of a sudden he goes into a robotic trance, and spells the word correctly in a very deep robotic voice. It’s so weird to hear that voice coming from a high-pitched guy who wears clothes that he makes himself which look like pajamas.

3. Getting a few from the audience to participate: I thought it was really neat that they got four or five people from the audience to participate in the show. They sat in the middle row, but they still stood out because they looked clueless. It was funny to watch them. They had to go to the front of the stage and spell out words that they were given, and the host of the spelling bee described one guy as someone who looks like they would be in a fraternity. Some of the remarks were so random yet funny.

4. Unique cast: All the members of the cast were all unique in their own way. It would have been boring if they weren’t. Mr. Panch looked nerdy. Barfee was kind of obnoxious, and he spelled his words by air writing them with his magical foot. That was my favorite way of spelling. Another girl who had a lisp spelled them silently by pretend writing them on her arm. Another guy spelled his words by pretending he’s about to hit a baseball with his pretend bat. Another guy spelled his words while he was in a robotic trance.

5. Setting and lighting: The set looked very nice. There was a big gold trophy in the corner and seats for the spellers on the left (audience view). On the back of the seats was a painting of the Taj Mahal in India to show that the mother of one of the spellers lived there. There was a banner that came down slowly that was called the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. I felt that moment was quite dramatic and got the audience excited for the play. The lighting was pretty cool because it did all types of things. It flickered, or it shined upon one person. It changed colors, and it shined on the trophy to make it look very dazzling.


 * // Cons: //**

1. Repetition: The show kind of felt repetitive because the whole show was about the spellers going up to spell out their word. It was kind of the same thing over and over again. We all knew what was coming: they are given a word, then they ask for a definition, then they ask for the word to be put in a sentence, and then they spell. We just didn’t know if they were going to spell it wrong or right. 2. Annoying spellers: I did not like one of the spellers because I felt like she was so annoying. I forgot her name. She was a really smart one who knew either six or seven language. Her voice sounded extremely obnoxious. Same goes for Barfee. He was obnoxious as well. Also the girl with the strong lisp kind of annoyed me. It was way too strong. I’ve never heard anyone talk with such a bad lisp before. 3. A few of the songs: Some of the songs were boring. I liked that the show was musical, but I think some of the songs could have been better. For example, the song about the girl and her dictionary was dragging. So was the song with her mother in India. It didn’t sound great or exciting. Just some of the songs did not really catch my attention. The girl next to me was dozing off during the songs. 4. Exaggeration: I felt that most of the characters were overdoing it. For some reason I didn’t like the girl with the dictionary. This nerdy character did not fit the actress very well, and she would act a little too nerdy. She looked too big to wear such a nerdy outfit. The girl with the lisp acted very childish, it was annoying. The 5. Costumes Leaf’s costume was so random. You couldn’t tell if they were pajamas or not. The girl with a lisp also had a very random set of clothes. It looked like they just threw something on. Barfee was wearing something way too formal. With these random costumes, one can’t tell what the age is of all the characters. Some acted and dressed too childish like a twelve year old. Others were too mature like the multilingual girl who wore an outfit that made her look like she was a foreign student. The baseball player must be at least a teenager if he is going to sing about his “unfortunate erection.” The ages of these characters seemed to consist of a wide range.