To Bee or Not to Bee

"Your word is: elephant."

"Can I get the definition, please?"

"It means ... an elephant."

-- "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee"

GOTCHA! -- gotcha, gotcha, gotcha!

Couldn't spell "Hemidemisemiquaver," could ya? Yes, it's a word -- of British derivation, means a 64th-note in music. Yes, we knew how to spell it. (That's why the gods invented spell-check.) Yes, we knew what it meant. (That's why the gods invented lying.)

Yes, we're too cowardly to step onstage at Las Vegas Little Theatre's "The 25th Annual Putnam County Selling Bee" -- that's a musical, by the way -- but you can. Just follow the lead of local celebs.

"Paula Francis says she wants to do it if Spielberg is in the audience, so it will be her big break -- people are cracking me up," says Brian Scott, a co-star of Las Vegas Little Theatre's production of the Tony-winning musical that incorporates guest spellers. Scott's been rounding up Vegas notables to test their grammatical mettle during the three-weekend run.

Celebrity spell-casters include broadcasters Francis, Chris Saldana and Darren Miller of KLAS-TV, Channel 8; Nina Radetich of KTNV-TV, Channel 13; Kevin Janison and Alicia Jacobs of KVBC-TV, Channel 3; and KKLZ-FM, 96.3's Mike Manko, plus the band Killian's Angels.

And -- if your grammatical mojo is cookin' and your theatrical moxie is pumpin'-- you. "It's not like you're sitting in the audience minding your own business and get pulled up onstage," director Walter Niejadlik says about the sign-up table in the lobby before showtime, so theatergoers can demonstrate why they should be the next editor of Webster's New World Dictionary. "We'll do a quick interview to make sure they can handle being up onstage, then they'll have a three-minute training session and then the show starts and they're called up."

Conceptually unique, "Spelling Bee" is a one-act musical based on "C-R-E-P-U-S-C-U-L-E" (look it up), an improvisational play conceived by The Farm, a New York-based comedy troupe. As befits the improv impulse, the structure is loose enough to accommodate audience participants, as it did on Broadway with celebrities such as Al Sharpton, Roger Moore, Lea Salonga and Julie Andrews (who shockingly misspelled "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious").

Minus the gimmick, the play still offers endearing characters and evergreen themes. "I saw it on Broadway and I thought it was perfect for Little Theatre, certainly sizewise, and it's funny as hell," Niejadlik says. "At face value, it's a spelling bee like you remember from grammar school, but it's more about the kinds of things these tween-age kids are dealing with at that awkward age. A lot of people will recognize, if not themselves, then people they went to school with."

Set to a rock-jazz-pop score, it introduces six 12-year-olds -- portrayed by adults -- all social outsiders competing to advance to the National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C. They're guided by a counselor (who doles out juice boxes to the losers) and a returning champ/moderator, while a somewhat embittered vice principal acts as judge, word-reader and definition-giver. Audiences are treated as witnesses to the competition, some addressed as competitors' moms and dads.

"When I read it, I thought, they've actually talked to kids, because they're very authentic -- these kids are often intellectually ahead but socially backward and the rest of the junior high school populace looks down on them for being different," says Scott, who plays the vice principal, for him a relatable role, even a promotion: Scott teaches English to seventh-graders at Cortney Middle School.

"My students want to come, and if I make a mistake, they asked if they can say something," Scott says. "They're interested if I forget my lines or mispronounce a word."

Among the speller characters:

William Barfee, a prickly kid with one functioning nostril who was previously eliminated because of a severe allergic reaction to peanuts; Logainne Schwartzandgrubenierre (just spelling her own name should earn her the trophy), a neatnik with a lisp and two overbearing gay men as parents; Marcy Park, an overachiever from the Catholic school Our Lady of Intermittent Sorrows, who sleeps three hours a night, hides in the bathroom cabinet and isn't allowed to cry; Leaf Coneybear, who hails from a family of ex-hippies, makes his own clothes and spells words while in a trance; Chip Tolentino, a defending champ and Boy Scout who returns to the Bee, only to discover puberty emerging at an awkward moment; and Olive Ostrovsky, a newcomer and dictionary devotee all alone at the Bee, her mom at an ashram in India and her father flat-out late.

"She's kind of a straight man, she loves everyone," says Amanda Kraft, who portrays Olive. "She wants to succeed, but she wants to see others succeed, too. But what she'd really like is to make a friend." At its core, Kraft adds, "Bee" is more about learning lessons than learning words. "This is showing kids growing up and learning that losing doesn't make you a loser, you can still have fun and make friends. They all feel alienated in their own ways. They're loners at school, but when they come here they seem better."

One thing, actors: Beyond memorizing lines and songs, master your spellings. "Knowing our audiences, they would have no trouble bringing up the fact that someone misspelled a word," Niejadlik says. "Probably right in the middle of the show."

GOTCHA!

Contact reporter Steve Bornfeld at sbornfeld@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0256.