Underrated Musical #2: 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

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Any mezzo-soprano or theatre fan would recognize “The I Love You Song” from this show but probably not any other song. But this one-act musical with the genius music of Bill Finn is one that every avid listener should give a chance! 

Here are some similar shows and the reason they correlate with Spelling Bee:
Falsettos- the same style of music and composer/lyricist
Come From Away- rather than one lead, both shows have a lot of medium-sized roles that serve as leads
A Chorus Line- rather than having an intricate plot, explores the backstory and personal lives of each character
Dear Evan Hansen- sense of humor that's targeted to teens

And here’s what’s extra unique about the musical- each night of performances, a handful of audience members are selected to participate in the ‘spelling bee’ without being given any clues or directions. On multiple occasions, the actors have had to jump around and improvise in the script because theatergoers have misspelled ‘cow’ on purpose. Sometimes, the chosen audience members are excellent spellers and the actors have to force them to spell incorrectly to continue on with the show. Once, Julie Andrews herself was picked to spell!

A favorite detail of mine generally is when shows end the same way they begin. That is, when the finale is a reprise of the opening. This show, in the same way, ends with an epilogue scene where the spellers proclaim with the same melody as before, “at the 25th annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, we grew up undeniably.” They also use the notion that it wasn’t the end but rather, “a very very very nice, very nice beginning.” And that’s special to me because I too was a spelling bee kid and it really is a nice beginning.

The three songs you should listen to in order to see whether Spelling Bee is for you are “Pandemonium,” “The I Love You Song,” and “Why We Like Spelling,” with an honorable mention to my second favorite song in the show, “I Speak Six Languages.” If you like these and the style of the music, you’re nearly guaranteed to like the show! But a fair warning to all who listen for the first time: the lyrics tend to be crude and vulgar, in true Bill Finn fashion. Beware of “Chip’s Lament” if you want to avoid said vulgarity.

Anyway, I love this show and I think you will too! What underrated musical should I spotlight on next?

Hadestown- The Significance of the Workers Chorus

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Specifically, something they do countless times throughout the newly-released Broadway cast album. If you’ve listened to “Chant,” “Epic II,” or any of the other updated versions of the songs from Hadestown, you’ll notice that the Workers Chorus uses a loud /k/ sound mixed in with their lyrics. So what does it really mean when the five-person ensemble does this?

I haven’t been lucky enough to see Hadestown, and probably won’t for a while unless by some lucky chance it goes on tour, but I’ve been brainstorming to figure out the significance of the /k/. There’s a small chance that it doesn’t have any rhyme or reason, but it seems like everything in Hadestown is connected to something else, so there’s got to be something there.

Another point I have to make about this detail is that in the 2016 workshop recording, the sound was pretty much only used in “Chant” and its reprise. Now, I hear it in many of the other songs, especially ones that weren’t on the old recording and were newly released for Broadway. Other things have changed on the album for sure, but there’s a significant reason to the rest of them.

If anyone knows why the workers do what they do so often, please please PLEASE let me know because I’m in love with this musical and I want to know everything! P.S. I’m back! I just finished my two-weekend run of Peter Pan, which was time-consuming, and while I’m sad to see it end, now I can write again!

My Top 5 Shows-Week of July 7th

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This is a short post, but I’ll post another normal post soon I promise!

In no particular order, here are my top five of the week!

  • Hadestown
  • Tuck Everlasting
  • Waitress
  • Finding Neverland
  • and… a tie between Dear Evan Hansen and In the Heights!

Honorable Mention: Come From Away, which I’m seeing the national tour of on Friday the 12th!!!

Underrated Musical: Tuck Everlasting

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Many of us have read the book by Natalie Babbitt, but unfortunately the musical version of Tuck Everlasting didn’t get hardly the fame it deserved. Only playing just over six weeks of performances on Broadway back in 2016, the show certainly didn’t live up to its name in length. But even after it closed, the musical lived on through its fans and cast members. And because I wish more people appreciated this show’s beauty, here’s an overview of Tuck Everlasting that I will try to make spoiler-free. No promises.

With hauntingly beautiful melodies by Chris Miller set to lyrics by Nathan Lysen, the score is one that stays stuck in your head for weeks on end- trust me, I know from experience. Normally, when I recommend a musical to someone, I will pick out 3 songs that give the aura and style of the show. The first of these songs is “Live Like This,” the opening number, which showcases the ensemble and introduces all the characters on their separate paths, before they’ve all been brought into the same story. The second song is “Partner in Crime,” another full-cast number with an instrumental that really shows off the orchestra. It’s a really upbeat and fun song that I think is one of the best Act One finale numbers out there! The final song is “Time Quartet.” Fans of the show know that this follows Miles Tuck’s solo, “Time,” but I think the quartet is best at showing the style of the more ballad-like songs. It’s also one of the most emotional moments of the show, so it’s good to know what you’re getting yourself into 😉 (Honorable Mention to the orchestral ballet, “The Story of Winnie Foster.”)

The story is just as beautiful when paired with the aforementioned score. The story starts with the focus on Winnie Foster, who is literally my dream role a young girl longing to explore the world without restriction from her grieving mother. (The father has not-so-recently passed away.) Winnie escapes, and she meets the Tuck family, who have a secret that changed their lives, or rather, made their lives ‘everlasting.’ You see, in the wood in Treegap, there is a spring with water that gives the person who drinks that water immortality. The whole Tuck family- Mae and Angus and their sons, Jesse and Miles- have drank this water and now they have to live their lives in secrecy. Jesse tells Winnie all of this, and Winnie decides she wants to live forever too. To avoid spoilers, I’ll leave the rest to you to find out for yourself. (For the record, there’s a really good quality bootleg on Youtube.)

And, just for reference, the cast is packed full of big names with equally big talent:
~Sarah Charles Lewis as Winnie Foster
~Andrew Keenan-Bolger as Jesse Tuck (my whole heart)
~Robert Lenzi as Miles Tuck
~Carolee Carmello as Mae Tuck
~Michael Park, who is officially typecasted as the dad, as Angus Tuck
~Terrence Mann as the Man in the Yellow Suit (a character who has a lot of controversy as to who he really is)
~Michael Wartella as Hugo
~Fred Applegate as the Constable
And an ensemble that redefines ensembles! For example, Newsies + Mean Girls actor Ben Cook can be spotted.

I highly recommend this musical to anyone, especially if you’re a fan of shows like Newsies, Anastasia, and even Finding Neverland! I’ll probably do posts like this where I spotlight on an underappreciated show once in a while. What show do you want to see more of on here?

An Update and Me Being a Performer

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If you look back to a couple weeks ago, you’ll see that I wrote that I was going to a vocal clinic/camp for a week. That week has past and I didn’t post at all last week because the day after was a Sunday, which is when I write and post/schedule all my articles, and I was purely exhausted. But I learned so much and I got to perform as well! Here are the links to my solos:

I sang "What I Did For Love" from A Chorus Line:
 https://youtu.be/WJapbkWTHoY
And the Italian Arietta "Caro mio ben:"
https://youtu.be/o0u7_JxUvdI

❤ So now I'm trying to decide what musical theatre song I want to work on next. It's currently between these-
"Green Finch and Linnet Bird" from Sweeney Todd
"No One Else" from Great Comet
"All That Matters" from Finding Neverland
"Breathe" from In the Heights
and "Everlasting" from Tuck Everlasting

Thinking About What’s Closing Soon

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If you haven’t heard yet, I have some news for you. On Thursday and Friday (6/20-21) two well-loved shows announced closing dates on August 11th. The Prom and Be More Chill are both shows that I love, and that I know many people love just as much. And both have not even been running for a year yet, which is even more heartbreaking.

Let’s start with The Prom, since it announced its final bow first. From what I can tell, this production is closing simply because it isn’t selling enough tickets. But on the other hand, almost every show is sold out and some people bought tickets for later dates that are now cancelled. The reason I’m devastated by this show leaving th Great White Way is because it’s exactly what the world needs to see at a time like now. Especially since it’s Pride Month (happy pride, btw!) and some people still aren’t being accepting of certain groups of people. The Prom promotes not only that love is love, but also that everyone deserves the same treatment and that we all have our right to live how we want to live. It made history on the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade with the first kiss between two females. It’s the most open-minded show to ever hit New York, and it has representation for everyone. And it has one of my all time favorite quotes: “One thing’s universal- life’s no dress rehearsal.”

Moving on to Be More Chill. I don’t have as much to say about this show but that doesn’t mean I won’t miss it, because I totally will. This show has only been open since early this year!! This is way too soon to close! But with that being said, I knew it wouldn’t last that long. The American Theatre Wing is getting bored with musicals based on preexisting material. I can’t blame them to be honest, but I definitely don’t group BMC in with most of the other recent adaptations or even the biopic musicals. The message the show displays is one that also needs to be heard. It shows that life is hard, and secretly, we all just want things to be easy, but often we can trade convenience for quality. We’re really all just ‘pitiful children’ in the end.

How do you feel about these shows closing? Let me know! (I just think it’s so sad how shows have to close so soon. I wish we could just build more venues, but that’s totally unrealistic.)