My husband a star speller!

Sunday afternoon we attended the delightful 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee at Portland Center Stage. Because we were both star spellers and English majors, this show was right up our alley.

I had read on the PCS Facebook page that audience members could show up at the theater a little early to sign up to be a guest speller. As soon as I shared that news with Mike, he was excited about his opportunity. We showed up 30 minutes early to sign up, yet they had spots for only four volunteers and appeared to have a big stack of signup sheets. Mike had an intuition that he would be chosen, and he was right! Here he is getting briefed (and photographed) backstage before the show.
 
The show centered around a bunch of misfit champion spellers, as well as a "comforter" for the losers (played by the amazing Gavin Gregory) and the two facilitators of the bee (played by the talented Susanna Mars and the funny Darius Pierce, both of whom have appeared in several recent PCS shows). The music and play are extremely silly and made me laugh out loud quite a few times.

Mike had a blast and appeared completely at home up onstage. (Photography and video are forbidden, so I don't have any shots of him being up onstage.) He lasted for a few words (of course, it was all planned out--one of the words for a guest speller was "cow" while others were impossibly difficult), until he had to spell "Kinnikinnick," which he got wrong by one letter! He was upset with himself, because we actually have some of this stuff in our garden. At any rate, he loved his turn as star speller, and we thoroughly enjoyed the play.
Here's a video trailer of the play, so you can get an idea of the silliness!

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