Spelling Bee brings laughs, risque humor to IU Auditorium stage

Spelling bees aren’t innocent competitions anymore.

Complete with gyrating hips and erections, “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” brought more to the stage than how to spell “syzygy.”

The Tony Award-winning musical follows the intense competition between six middle school spellers who, far from being considered “normal,” each have their own quirks to get them through the competition.

William Barfee (pronounced Bar-fay) has a superstitious belief that his foot is, in fact, magical. So he spells out all the words on the ground with his “magic foot” before saying them out loud.

Similarly, Olive Ostrovsky talks into her hand before spelling the word in front of the microphone.

Leaf Conneybear, who was never supposed to be competing in the county spelling bee because he was only the second runner-up at his middle school, gets by with some luck when trying to spell out words describing various South American rodents.

Marcy Park, a new girl to the area, was previously ninth in the nation. She also sleeps three hours a night, speaks six languages and isn’t allowed to cry.

Chip Tolentino, the returning champ, is clad in his Boy Scout uniform and desperately trying to get Leaf’s sister to notice him.

Logainne Schwartzandgrubenierre, who turned down a previous award in protest of the Bush Administration, writes the words out on her forearm. She also has two fathers.
In addition to the six middle school competitors, three audience members and Alex from B97’s Alex’s Playhouse were brought up on stage after Rona, a previous Bee champ and current hostess, announced a few spellers who had failed to check in.

Alex was the first audience member to be eliminated after he added an extra “a” to the spelling of “jihad.”

Anna Cron, a student at Binford Elementary school, was the last audience participant left in the Bee. Cron said the audience participants were told to have fun and to spell to the best of their ability.

“I didn’t really know what to do,” Cron said. “I was really overwhelmed.”

However, Cron surprised everyone by correctly spelling a word that was intended to eliminate her, causing everyone, including the professional actors on stage, to laugh in disbelief.

“I had never heard the word,” Cron said. “I just took a guess.”

The show included jokes on everything from Scientology to the Jonas Brothers to Al Roker.

Jesus even appeared to one of the spellers, reassuring her he would still love her regardless of whether she won or lost because he really didn’t care about these kinds of things.

Freshmen Marissa McClellan and Kyle Garza came to see the show with their residence hall floor. McClellan said she had heard of the show, but had never seen it before.

“I thought it was fun,” Garza said. “A little risque, but funny.”