G-U-E-S-T S-P-E-L-L-E-R
Right before I watched Atlantis Productions‘ The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, I was just telling a friend how tended to purposely screw up my participation in elementary bees. I’d place, but I rarely finished. Perhaps I’d rather “not live up to expectations”.
Funny thing was, in this particular spelling bee, I was determined to get up to a certain round, and I still P-H-A-I-L-E-D gloriously.
Spelling Bee unfolds in…well, a little county spelling bee! It’s one of the few stageplays I know that’s part improv, part hard script, as it tells the story of the bee’s contestants and the judges. They also get a few celebrity and audience volunteers, just to spice it up.
[youtube=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=292dPNs9S8k”]
Spelling Bee performance at the Tony Awards, featuring highlights of the show and a very special guest speller!
While waiting for the house to open, I caught the sign at the front desk asking for volunteer guest spellers. I jumped at the chance! I wasn’t allowed to volunteer at the last local production as I was a member of the company that staged it (Ateneo Blue Repertory) , and this time I stood a fighting chance. As I signed up, I was warned that I would only be called in the event of an absent celebrity guest speller. Swell. It would have gone down as opportunities I nearly had a stab at, which also made for interesting stories.
“Have you had any theatre experience?” The stage manager in charge of guest spellers asked.
Ok, so I had. Mostly backstage! And some onstage. Ok, more than some onstage experience, but for that evening I’ll declare it null and void.
“Nope.” I said with a BIG smile on my face. I was given a little ‘Finalist’ button to wear, as a thanks and a little plug for the available merchandise.
Later, celebrity guest speller did not show up so I was pulled aside and briefed. Standard etiquette, really: don’t be noisy, sit where you’re supposed to, this is what’ll happen during the show, this is what you can ask when you spell, etc etc. “And no acting, be yourself!” The stage manager instructed. Dang, so much for my tribute to High School Musical.
Guest spellers do not stay on for the whole show, and are set-up to be kicked off the stage before the final round of the show. People familiar with the musical strive to be the last speller standing marked by ‘The Counsellor’s Song’, and I wasn’t even going for that. I just wanted to be a part of one my favorite musical number’s, Pandemonium (click for youtube, as I’m not allowed to embed it here).
And probably because one of the judges has known me since I was 11 years old and I couldn’t keep my big precocious mouth shut at the time, my first word was tricky, For my first word, I was asked to spell ‘markdeer’. The way I spelled it is apparently wrong, and I can’t remember how the actual word is spelled! Google is not helping either, as I get hits for ‘marcdeer’ too. All I know is that it’s some Southeast Asian animal, and I’m not sure how to spell it!
Sucks to be me! (Oops, wrong play…!)
I had only been onstage for about 10 minutes, and I was the first guest speller off that evening. I got a hug from the counselor, a tetra pack of Sunkist orange, and I got to keep my button. I whimpered at not having been in the Pandemonium number, but ah well, the show goes on!
Thank God my ESL clients are based out of Manila! That has got to be the lowest point of my teaching career, I joked.
I’ll take my short Spelling Bee lifespan as God’s punishment for fibbing. Nonetheless, it’s 10 minutes of onstage awesome and the rest of the show was all-around fun that even non-aficionados would enjoy. So while you can, book your tickets today! Do not miss out on this one!
‘The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee’ runs until April 4, 2008. For show information, visit or ring them up at 892-7078 or 840-1187. You can also visit Atlantis Productions‘ Website for individual show contacts and information on their current season.
Good Old Glory Type Days
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2pMjztGHnM]
The video above comes from the off-Broadway production of Glory Days, a musical about five boys who reunite at their old high school.
It has been over a year since I graduated college.I have been blessed in being kept busy, if not with theatrical rackets but with ESL teaching. I’ve been blessed, and am very thankful for having been spared months on standby or the job crunch especially in these difficult times!
It’s gonna be the first summer of my adult life, and for a minute I missed the prospect of having three months idling around. Then I remembered that since becaming active in theatre, it’s been a few years since my last idle summer! My last few summers were committed to one production or another, and they’ve hardly been idle. I can’t say I complained. Productions are exhausting but I wouldn’t have it any other way. It was a good kind of exhaustion that tucked me in at night. ‘Sides, in that heat, I got aircon I didn’t have to pay for!
So here’s to the summers I missed, and the working summers to follow!
Bartering According to Children and Geek High
The Cost of Sharing
I learned this exchange rate from my Creative Writing class at Pocketful of Kids:
One large hot shot or chicken nugget is equivalent to a french fry. The bigger the nugget, the more french fries it costs.
Geek High
Continued from Mii As Ancient Geek
I was in Indonesia from 2000-2002 because of my Mom’s job. I finished high school there, and I made fast friends on campus with my interest in Harry Potter and a Neon Genesis Evangelion keychain on my schoolbag. One of my schoolmates mentions Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, who would later be staples of my sister’s reading list.
I carried a blueberry iMac around campus, earning the nickname “Macgirl”. I also started blogging on pitas to stay in contact with my friends back in Manila.
I practiced Bahasa Indonesia by way of reading VCD subtitles. I collected a few choice Japanese comics in Indonesian, and I often poked through Kinokuniya and Maruzen bookstores. I also got MTV Taiwan on cable, and was able to follow the Japanese Billboard charts.
I got my first taste of Asian horror through the Japanese classic,
The Ring. For weeks after my first viewing, I swore Sadako followed me in the mirrors and glass panels around the house.
In my last year of high school, I spent Saturday afternoons in a gaming cafe with my school friends, learning headshots and dodging bullets on Counterstrike. Later on I’d treat Warcraft III as SimCity. I also started watching Meteor Garden, which was awful in so many ways but I grew to love it.
For the first time in my life, I was able to freely geek in real life and make connections from it.
Playground Magazine March 2008 and Mii as Ancient Geek
PLUG!
I have an article in March’s issue of Playground magazine!
I reviewed Persona: Trinity Soul the anime. For my thoughts on that, read the article on page 90!
MII AS ANCIENT GEEK
This is actually part of an answer to the ‘5 things you associate with me’ meme that’s been going around. This is from Ren‘s list where he remembers me as a ‘geek’.
Geekiness is a pretty big part of my life, though I’m admittedly not big a geek as I’m made out to be. I button mash, I don’t torrent like crazy, and my days of spending money on those must-have toys and trinkets are over. I’ve had to re-prioritize. I’m still geeky by enjoying dorky para-para dance moves, listening and singing to music I can barely understand, and resolving difficult decisions in life by “rolling for it”.
Star Wars should have been my first fandom, if I understood what was going on when I watched at age 4. I watched Episode 4 every weekend at my grandmother’s house, back-to-back with E.T. My Mom swore that the betamax tape that held it got scratchy from innumerable viewings.
I got initiated into the anime fandom by way of Sailormoon while I was in Grade 4. From Sailormoon, it escalated from there. I had a my TV diet heavily consisted of Japanese animation on weekends and Wednesday nights with Sailormoon, Yu Yu Hakusho, Time Quest, Sarah: Ang Munting Princessa, which led me to the Pinoy Otaku Mailing List, then to IRC where I found like-minded fans to chat with. In between chats I also found fanfiction, and started experimenting with the medium to further hone my writing skills. It was also my IRC friends that got me into East Asian pop and rock.
This all happened between 1998-2000. We were rather ahead of the times – this was a whole year or two before GMA7 launched their We Are Anime campaign. I was an awkward teenager, my interests were way off base with most of my classmates at the time. The friends I made online eventually became my closests confidants offline.