Scenes from the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee Musical, or how to make an unscheduled appearance on a Broadway stage...

Scenes from (after) the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee Musical, originally uploaded by Pauly_.

I didn't go to see the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee Musical to be one of the four members invited on stage to be part of the show. I was approached after entering the theatre to consider putting my name forward. It was then I remembered reading about the audience participation in this show where audience members are invited to be "spellers" too. I was going to this show to appreciate the music as I am a fan of (composer) William Finn's music.

I told the woman interviewing potential audience involvement members this and she asked "Oh so you're a fan of musical theatre?"
"No!" I lied. Just like I did the previous night at the jazz club. Either that or I was still thinking about that Tarzan show. The conversation then continued somewhat along the following lines:
"Are you a good speller?"
"Yes." I lied again.
"Do you play any sort of word games?"
"Um I play scrabble." Another lie.
"That's a good answer. And would you be nervous getting up on stage?"
"No probably not…" I think I was laughing about the prospect at this point…
"Would there be anything that would concern you about being up on stage?"
"No not much. I would just be worried that I would look like an idiot…"
"But you're here by yourself, nobody knows you so what have you got to lose?"
By this point I realised that it was a perfect excuse. And since it was just getting up on stage to spell before going back to my seat what was the harm in that… I even thought I might be a good way of drawing attention to the fact that I was here in New York… And single too…

Well, it wasn't quite all that. Five minutes before the show began I along with three other lucky audience members were told we were going to be in the show. We were given our special badges, some rather brief and vague instructions (including the bleachers we will be sitting on will spin at some point) and instructions on how to enter the stage from our seats. We were told repeatedly that we were not to use funny voices or ham things up, but to just be ourselves and the actors on stage would tell us what to do (if anything). We weren't allowed to talk to the actors unless they spoke to us first, as they were doing a job…

Anyway, first musical number is over and then it was our cue to get up on stage. The ushers and people around me were very excited for me. I wasn't so enthused. A few years of London theatregoing had made me a bit blasé about this whole endeavour. London audiences hate audience participation and expect to be entertained without having to contribute anything other than polite applause and the occasional cheer.

On stage while the actors act in that show that I paid to see we get further directions by the actor Lisa Howard (playing character Rona Peretti). Again we're told no hamming it up. Then the actors come to us and tell us where to sit on these bleachers.

"You're on the third row in the centre," one hissed to me. Ok I can follow that instruction. I flopped down a little on the bleacher (hey I was being myself) and felt the whole thing move and shudder. One of the actors made some comment but I didn’t quite hear it. It could have been something about being a clod.

So far it wasn't going so bad. I had heard the cast album countless number of times so I figured there would be few surprises in the rest of the show. I was wrong. It is one thing to sit in the audience and hear singers belt out numbers but when they are sitting either side of you and in front of you it can be a little surprising, and loud. I don't think I jumped but I sure as hell felt like it when during the second number "The Spelling Rules" the cast around me belted out

"A SPELLER… MAY ASK QUESTIONS…"

On the CD it sounded so soft and sweet, but on stage it's enough to startle the shit out of you.

It eventually came time for me to spell my first word. Every speller is given an introduction as they walked up to the microphone on centre stage. Mine was, "Paul likes to scare the other spellers by dressing like a theatre critic". The audience cracked up. Ok it was a pretty good jibe to keep me in my place. And there I had been thinking that I was looking rather funky in my smart new A&F t-shirt I bought from their 5th Avenue store (the one where the shop greeter is a shirtless adonis). The word I had to spell was "Mexican". All spellers had to ask two questions which were "Can I have a definition please" and "Can you use that in a sentence". Both provide the potential for further cheap laughs. In my case the definition (something about anybody looking remotely like they were from anywhere in Central or Latin America) had the audience in hysterics. It was one of those moments where you knew you were a foreigner as you just didn't get the cultural references (notwithstanding the debates in the news about illegal aliens). After getting the word right I got to go back to the bleachers.

Ok I was still on stage. A couple more numbers pass. Watching them from the stage you realise that it is not the same as watching it on the audience. I began to look forward to my next chance to spell as I imagined it would be a tricky word and would kick me off the stage back to my comfy seat in the audience.

It was while thinking about my comfy seat that one of the actors hisses in my ear "get up and follow me". Hang on. This was the musical number "Pandemonium". There was nothing said before the show about participating in a musical number. Before I know it I'm on stage linked arms with the actors. "Sidestep!" one of them hisses at me. Sidestep? What's that? I try not to fall over and take heart that the two other audience members on stage must be grappling with the same issues. Next thing I hear hissed is "Move your shoulders!" Did they mean up and down or side to side? I start to notice there is a lot of audience laughter. We three audience members were then reunited and told to hold hands. Then an actor hissed at us to jump up and down on the spot. So we did. As my back was partially to the audience I have no idea how the scene looked. But by the time an actor told us to stop jumping the audience was in hysterics…

The number eventually was over and we went back to the bleachers. It soon was my next chance to spell. As I walked up to the microphone my introduction was "Paul has just recovered from a nasty case of head lice". That was somewhat funny, but I couldn't resist scratching my head at this point, and I think I got just as much of a laugh. Hey, they did say to be ourselves and I figured I would have done that in real life. The word this time I had to spell was Cenacle. Not knowing my religious (or Latin) texts as well as I should I spelt it with an S. It was time for Mitch the comfort counsellor to appear and give me a apple juice and a hug. Mitch was a big African American with dreadlocks and he wanted a big hug. I didn't give him enough of a hug. So while the rest of the cast sang "Goodbye, you were good but not good enough" he kept pulling me back to have a proper hug. I tried to pull away twice and the audience just fell about laughing.

Eventually I did get back to my seat and was able to enjoy the remaining part of the show. Spelling Bee is a great musical full of very funny songs, fantastic characters and a lot of heart. One other audience member (a young boy who actually was a good speller) lasted one more round before the show settled down to the rest of its story. The audience cheered him off.

Oh and after the show at least 10 people came up to me and said how wonderful I was. They were all women of course. And I was just being myself… I can only imagine (possibly with fear) how that must have looked on stage…