By Sophia Noya | Staff Writer
Brush up on your spelling– FIU Theatre is preparing for today’s O-P-E-N-I-N-G of the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, their only musical of the season.
Spelling Bee follows six young contestants who compete for the title of best speller in a unique and highly entertaining comedy that scored six nominations and two wins at the 2005 Tony Awards.
The show’s eccentric characters, witty humor, and emotional appeal have made it a modern favorite on Broadway.
“The show is about growing up,” said Darren “Jojo” Brown, a junior studying Musical Theatre who plays William Barfée, “All of the kids come from backgrounds where they’re all asked to be better, and pushed constantly. They learn how to become their own part of the world.”
Musical Theatre has entered a new era at FIU. The B.F.A program has revived the genre for the theatre department, guaranteeing that at least one musical will be present in all upcoming seasons.
The department’s Spring 2024 production of Pedro Almodovar’s “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown” was the first FIU musical in eleven years, and the first of the B.F.A program. Two musicals later, the program is stronger than ever.
Payton Federico-Stopa, a junior Musical Theatre major who plays Logainne Schwartzandgrubenierre, contests to the success of the program: “It’s really exciting to have professors who care so much, especially our Director, Olivia de Guzman. She has completely transformed the program.”
The production of a musical, when compared to producing a play, comes with unique challenges for the theatre’s cast and crew that often go unnoticed by the audience.
Ahead of opening night, the cast of Spelling Bee must master, literally, all of that jazz: dozens of cues, complicated vocals and dialogue, quick costume changes, extensive choreography, and much more.
“There are components of singing, dancing, acting– just so many excess layers, so many different cues and moving pieces, far more than a regular play,” Federico-Stopa affirmed.
“There are a lot more bodies and man-power that go into making a musical,” agreed Kayla Urra, a junior majoring in Performance who plays Marcy Park. “It’s different from a play. In a play, you discover the script and the characters, and then elevate it. But for a musical, you do that and then ten times the work.”
Vocal preparation is an especially vital part of musical rehearsal– especially for a show like Spelling Bee, which touts complex belting and character voice acting.
Brown and Federico-Stopa, whose characters have idiosyncratic voices, practiced their vocals diligently.
“I was taken aside in the first week by our director, and we talked about what we wanted my voice to be, how we can mold it,” Brown said, “We tweaked with the voice a lot, exploring the character and why it is that he sounds like that.”
Federico-Stopa had similar training: “My character has a lisp, so I had dialect training with the Head of Performance. That was a big component of my vocal training. We were given critiques that would help us better understand our voices, like how we shape our vowels, which is especially important since this is a show about words.”
Urra, one of only two Performance majors in the cast, focused on training her voice.
“I had to approach this with my different set of skills,” she said, “The first week, I was in a different vocal state. Now I’m really taking care of my voice, and learning the differences between pushing and easing in singing, training so that I’m at the same level as everyone else.”
While bringing Broadway to FIU, the Theatre department combines the anticipated with the original.
“We’ve kept it truthful to the original, but we’ve added so many elements,” said Brown, “Like lighting, for example. There are lights in places you didn’t even know you could put a light. The show has unique details in every crevice.”
The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee opens at 8:00 pm today, February 13th, at the Wertheim Performing Arts Center and will be showing until February 22nd. Tickets can be purchased online on the FIU Theatre website.
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