It's Time to Put on Makeup...

It's time to put on makeup.
 It's time to dress up right
It's time to raise the curtain on the Muppet Show tonight.

Last night was the opening night - not for the Muppet Show (though I always think of the singing monsters as I'm changing and putting on my makeup) but for our production of the musical - The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.  (Music and Lyrics by William Finn)


I enjoy the theatre. I like to be on stage.  So a few weeks ago I auditioned for a role in the Spelling Bee, and now here I am as one of the actors in our community theatre production.

In the show I play one Leaf Coneybear, the ADHD son of a homeschooling hippie family who is only in the bee by a fluke.  He came in third in his local bee, but the winner had to go to her bat mitzvah and the runner up had to attend the bat mitzvah - so Leaf was up for the county finals.

The show is about the kids in the bee - but like all good stories, there's more going on.  It's also about their families and their parents and their struggle to be kids in the high pressure world of competitive spelling.

One girl  has a mother who is in an ashram in India for a 9 month spiritual retreat, and a father who can't (or won't) leave work to watch his daughter compete in the bee.  Her mother sings, "and I swear it's true" her father sings, "maybe it's true... I love you."  Ouch.
 
Another speller - the youngest speller at the bee - has two fathers who pressure her to win at any cost.  "We hate losers, that's why we discipline. God hates losers, because losers do not know how to win..."  When she blows a simple word she sings "If you don't love me America, I understand why. You hate losers. So do I.  I'm a looser.  So good-bye...."    Ouch.
 
Leaf is in the spelling bee despite the fact that his parents and siblings (Marigold, Brooke, Pinecone, Raisin, Landscape, and Paul) think of him as a "dumb kid" and laugh at his aspirations to compete in the bee.  Ouch.
 
But lest you get the wrong idea, the show is a comedy.  It is filled with laughs and good fun. Part of the fun comes from the audience participation.  The show is written to include volunteer spellers from the audience.  Tonight our mayor was called up.  He misspelled the word CONCINNITY.
 
Last night was opening night - and despite a few  problems with the microphones, it went really well.  Tonight the microphone issues were resolved, and we had another good show.  Yeah. We have shows tomorrow through Saturday.  If you're in the area, come on by and see it.

---- Bytheway:

OMPHALOSKEPSIS is one of the words to be spelled during the show.  It means Navel Gazing