Recommendation

Last Thursday night we went to see The Tony Award Winning- 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.

We love the National Spelling Bee. This play was written by someone who loves it too. Seeing this has been high on Kaitlin's to-do list since she first saw it advertised on the National Spelling Bee. We were thrilled when it came to our city.

We knew before hand that several would be chosen from the audience. We were relieved when none of us were called. I believe from the way they acted on stage that they were not surprised to be called.

There were 6 cast spellers and 4 from the audience. The other cast members were a pronouncer, an announcer and my favorite the comfort counselor. The comfort counselor was gangster who was assigned to do this as his community service.

The spellers spelled in order and their stories were told at the same time in a very clever way. The audience spellers were mixed in with the cast spellers.

The only questions that were asked the pronouncer were ' May I have a definition? and Can you use it in a sentence?' In the National Spelling Bee, when the spellers ask a question, the answer is given in a way to be a help to the speller. Not in this play and that led to many laughs. One word was 'cow'. The speller asked for the word to be used in a sentence. The sentence was 'There is a cow'.

You could tell when it was time for the audience spellers to go back to their original seats because their words got INCREDIBLY hard. All the audience spellers were off the stage but one. She went up to spell her INCREDIBLY hard word and shocker of all shocker, she spelled it correct! She was as stunned as the cast was. They all broke out into hearty laughter. She was called back up immediately to spell again. She was given an even more INCREDIBLY hard word. When she asked for a definition, she was told their wasn't one. (Lots of Laughter) As soon as she got one letter incorrect, the bell was rung and she was on her way back to her seat.

The cast spellers had their stories. One had a lisp, one was a scout, one wore a cape, one kept looking for her parents, but my favorite was the fat fellow. For being such a heavy fellow, he was light on his feet. He needed to be because most spellers use the placard that hangs around their neck to spell on but he used his magic foot. When given a word, he would spell it on the floor, in cursive, with his magic foot. Then he would spell the word looking at the floor like it was written there. This led to lots of laughs.

We all laughed so hard during this whole play. I hope we are able to see it again. If you have the opportunity to see it, you will not be disappointed.

In case you don't already have it on your calendar the National Spelling Bee begins on May 26 and ends on the 28th.