Posted 4:16 p.m. Wednesday, June 18, 2014
Celebrity guest spellers will add an element of improvisation to this year’s UW-L SummerStage production. Tickets go on sale at 1 p.m. Monday, June 23.
Celebrity guest spellers will add an element of improvisation to this year’s UW-La Crosse SummerStage production.
The musical 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee will feature celebrity guest spellers UW-L Provost Heidi Macpherson and UW-L Psychology Professor Betsy Morgan, among others. Volunteer audience members will also be invited to join the action on stage.
The goal is to have one celebrity speller each night of the musical, which begins at 7:30 p.m. Friday, June 27, at Toland Theatre, says director Mary Leonard.
The show celebrates an eclectic group of six teenagers vying for the spelling championship of a lifetime. As they spell their way through a series of ridiculous words, they hope to never hear the soul-crushing and pout-inducing “ding” of the bell that signals a mistake.
Macpherson will be the celebrity speller on Saturday, July 5. The provost says she believes she’s a good speller, but adds that living in the United Kingdom for 22 years, prior to coming to UW-L, “has messed up my spelling.”
“I move between U.K. and U.S. spelling without even noticing it — sometimes in the same sentence!” she says.
Morgan, the celebrity speller on Sunday, July 6, says she is a tremendous fan of UW-L Theatre, attending performances for the last 20 years. Morgan claims to be neither a brilliant nor horrible speller, but jokes she wishes white boards came with spell check. She agreed to join in the production because “I’m a sucker for student requests!”
Actors have rehearsed various scenes involving different reactions from their guest stars. Whether the guests are talented spellers or not, the cast needs to expect the unexpected, says Leonard.
“That’s the nature of live theater — the unexpected happens,” says Leonard. “The actor needs to process things quickly and react. I think that’s what makes it really fun for the audience.”
Leonard describes the play as silly, but also offering up a lot of “heart and soul.” To prepare for the play, actors watched the end of the real national spelling bee on TV and saw the intense process the spellers go through from cramming for the bee to the devastation of elimination.
The audience will see how pressure rises with each elimination as the spellers learn what it really means to be a winner.