Miss Ostrovsky, your word is boanthropy.

Oh, wait. One second. Please ma’am, could you not sit in that seat?...

On the 14th of January I went with my family to see the Melbourne Theatre Company perform The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. The title itself is a mouthful let alone the words that were being spelled on the stage.

The set was an American High (or Middle) School hall with bleachers to the right and left and a basketball ring centered in front of a "stage", complete with curtain, on which the orchestra performed. There was another set of bleachers on which the Spellers sat and it could be moved around on the stage for effect during some of the songs.

Although I dislike Marina Prior's singing voice I have noted that she does quite well in a comic role and as the singing was shared quite equally amoung the performers we did not have to endure too much of it. Marina played Bee hostess Rona Lisa Peretti and opens the show by spelling the word that she spelled correctly to win her spelling bee - "Syzygy".

Joining Ms Rona Lisa Peretti in the administration of the Bee were Vice-Principal Douglas Panch (Tyler Coppin) and Comfort Counselor Mitch Mahoney (Bert Labonte).

With the combined talents of David Campbell (Shout! - The Musical - Jacobsen Entertainment) as Chip Tolentino, Magda Szubanski (Kath & Kim - ABC TV) as William Barfee (pronounced bar-fay), Tim Wright (The Last Five Years - Echelon Productions) as Leaf Coneybear, Christen O'Leary (Urinetown - MTC) as Logainne Schwarzandgrubeniere, Natalie Mendoza as Marcy Park, Natalie O'Donnell as Olive Ostrovsky and four members of the audience as Spelling Bee competitors we were guaranteed an entertaining evening.

The members of the audience were of a different, younger, demographic with this production. It being a show with a PG rating and a family-type theme (hey, I went with mine) and also showing in the school holidays there was a buzz in the air which thankfully did not spill over into talkativeness during the performance... except when my Grandmother asked me what a "hickey" was. (I said I'd tell her afterwards. And, yes, I did.)

It's a Spelling Bee so you can guess what will happen - there will be a winner at the end. How the show gets there will be a little different with each performance as they are contending with the audience participation component. The audience members need to be kept "in the game" up to a certain point and then the actors can complete the rest of the show. This is realised when they are asked to spell easier words. This can then be complained about by the "real competitors" and they appeal to the judges.

In the performance we saw, one participator left the competition a little earlier than was obviously scheduled and the next audience participator was given the word "cat" to spell to keep her in the game - many complaints about that one. Then they also need to leave at the proper time too. This same a.p. who was given "cat" was then given a word that I had not heard of to spell and she did it correctly, causing some consternation at the judging desk. Another difficult word was immediately read and was not completed correctly by the a.p. and so the show could continue.

To assist with their spelling, one competitor has a "magic foot", one writes on her arm, one speaks into her hand and another appears to have some sort of divine intervention allowing him to arrive at the correct spelling. There are insights into their family life and the usual pubescent angst surfaces at the most inopportune moment causing disappointment for some and a feeling of freedom for others.

I heartily recommend this show. My husband even enjoyed it and he doesn't like musicals! It's playing until March 11th - an extended season which just proves how great it is.

...It's a marvelous memory
If you win the spelling bee
One's life improves from A to Z...