This will be split into different areas.
- Performance Research
- Preliminary Research
- Research following from Directors meeting
- Followup research Lighting Specific
Performance research
What is a spelling bee?
The word bee, as used in spelling bee, is one of those language puzzles that has never been satisfactorily accounted for. A fairly old and widely-used word, it refers to a community social gathering at which friends and neighbors join together in a single activity (sewing, quilting, barn raising, etc.) usually to help one person or family.
The earliest known example in print is a spinning bee, in 1769. Other early occurrences are husking bee (1816), apple bee (1827), and logging bee (1836). Spelling bee is apparently an American term. It first appeared in print in 1875, but it seems certain that the word was used orally for several years before that.
Those who used the word, including most early students of language, assumed that it was the same word as referred to the insect. They thought that this particular meaning had probably been inspired by the obvious similarity between these human gatherings and the industrious, social nature of a beehive. But in recent years scholars have rejected this explanation, suggesting instead that this bee is a completely different word.
One possibility is that it comes from the Middle English word bene, which means “a prayer” or “a favor” (and is related to the more familiar word boon). In England, a dialect form of this word, been or bean, referred to “voluntary help given by neighbors toward the accomplishment of a particular task.” (Webster’s Third New International Dictionary).
Bee may simply be a shortened form of been, but no one is entirely certain.
Spelling Bee’s are an event which may have originated in America, where participants are asked to spell a selection of words, usually starting with simple words and adding complexity as time progresses.
Often held in schools but adult ones are also known.
What Roles?
In the performance the children are mostly of middle school age. Middle school is attended by grades 5 (10-11years old) to 13 -14 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_school#United_States)
Alongside the children are various adults, Rona – master of ceremonies, Panch – Question wrangler and Mitch – Comforter
This school is set somewhere in the United States though there is no mention of it’s location.
Also on stage during the first half are 4 audience volunteers, who will be required to participate in the Bee.
Who wrote it?
Book by Rachel Sheinkin
Rachel Sheinkin is a playwright who also writes book and lyrics for musical theater. Collaborative projects have included The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (Broadway: Tony award, Drama Desk award, book of a musical); Striking 12 (Off Broadway: Lucille Lortel nomination, outstanding musical); Sleeping Beauty Wakes (LA Ovation award, world premiere musical); Little House on the Prairie (national tour); Blood Drive (Eugene O’Neill residency); Serenade (Baryshnikov Arts Center fellowship). She is currently working with William Finn to reshape librettos to his musicals Romance in Hard Times and Royal Family (Barrington Stage). In addition, she is back at work with her Cycle 10 GMTWP collaborator Nils Olaf Dolven on a new experimental musical drama. But then it’s all one big experiment. A lifelong student, she is one of those people who fantasize that if they won the lottery they’d go back to school—then realize they’ve kind of lived that way anyway. Before receiving a Dean’s Fellowship to explore collaborative musical writing at Tisch, Rachel studied playwriting with Paula Vogel at Brown University and received an MFA from Yale School of Drama. She was a visiting instructor of libretto writing for musical theater at Yale/Yale School of Drama through the Ted Shen Curriculum, and has been a member of the adjunct faculty at NYU’s Tisch Graduate Musical Theater Writing Program since 2002. Rachel is a volunteer tutor for the TASC high school equivalency exam, and a member of Dramatists Guild. We all won the lottery.
https://tisch.nyu.edu/grad-musical-theatre-writing/faculty/rachel-sheinkin
Music and Lyrics by William Finn
William Finn is the writer and composer of Falsettos, for which he received two Tony Awards, Best Book of a Musical (with James Lapine) and Best Original Score. A revival of Falsettos directed by James Lapine, is slated for Spring 2016. He has also written and composed In Trousers, March of the Falsettos and Falsettoland (Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Musical, two Los Angeles Drama Critics Awards, two Drama Desk Awards, the Lucille Lortel Award and Guggenheim Fellowship in Playwriting). Falsettos will have a Broadway revival in the Fall of 2016. He wrote music and lyrics and co-wrote book with James Lapine for A New Brain, which was produced at Lincoln Center and also a part of the 2015 Encores! Off-Center season. Mr. Finn wrote the lyrics to Graciela Daniele’s Tango Apasionado (music by the great Astor Piazzolla) and, with Michael Starobin, the music to Lapine’s version of The Winter’s Tale. His musical Romance in Hard Times which was presented at The Public Theater had a production with a reimagined book by Rachel Sheinkin at Barrington Stage in Summer of 2014. Mr. Finn wrote Painting You (one segment of the eight-part Love’s Fire), a piece commissioned and performed by the Acting Company, based on Shakspeare’s sonnets. His Songs of Innocence and Experience, commissioned by Williams College for the 2005 opening of its ‘62 Center for Theater and Dance, had it’s New York premiere at Lincoln Center’s Allen Room in 2012. For television, Mr. Finn provided the music and lyrics for the Ace Award-winning HBO cartoon Ira Sleeps Over, Tom Thumb and Thumbelina, Pokey Little Puppy’s First Christmas and, with Ellen Fitzhugh, two Brave Little Toaster cartoons. Mr. Finn has written for Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and The New Yorker. A graduate of Williams College, where he was awarded the Hutchinson Fellowship for Musical Composition, Finn now teaches a weekly master class at the NYU Tisch Graduate Program in Musical Theatre Writing. His most recent projects include Elegies, A Song Cycle (Lincoln Center), The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee which had a three-year run on Broadway and has been produced nationally and all over the world, and Little Miss Sunshine with James Lapine which received a production at Second Stage in 2013. For the past 9 years he has been the Artistic Head of the Musical Theatre Lab at the Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.
https://tisch.nyu.edu/grad-musical-theatre-writing/faculty/william-finn
Preliminary Research
As mentioned in my job application post I conducted some pre interview research leading up to the interview, from this research I produced the following document.
Lighting Location Character Colour Spelling Bee
I will now go into some further information regarding this document. These were the notes i made in regards to set leading up to my interview
Set
The play is performed in one act and appears to have no scene breaks, separated via songs
Play occurs only in a gym/school hall, so various washes to be used to denote different parts. Depending on set, if there are bleechers, these could be ‘colour change features’ to differentiate the different moods, then subtle changes on the main stage. Bleechers could also be used to hide side lighting/booms, out of the way so less chance to get knocked
May reproduce a stage on the stage
The entire performance takes place in one setting, a school gym in America. I used this information to begin some research into the potential look and feel of the set. I used google (http://www.google.com) as a starting place for my research, this led me to various different sites including youtube (http://www.youtube.com). My first thought process was to research various gyms both american and english, though the play is set in america I was unsure as to whether or not the director would change the setting to the UK. As I found inspiring images I added these to my moodboards on pinterest. I used keywords such as ‘assembly’, ‘school’, ‘American’, ‘English’, ‘Sports Hall’, ‘Gym’
As can be seen from the above images school halls/gyms seem to come in 2 varieties, warmly lit with wooden flooring,
or coldly lit with sports hall flooring.
There are some exceptions to this with the occasional wooden flooring with cold lighting.
Also when researching the possible look of the set, I found that often gym’s have gymnastic equipment on the walls and dotted around, such as climbing ropes, climbing frames etc. If I was given the role of set design, I would research this further as I felt that the final outcome of the set, if just recreating a gym/hall may be very flat. These additional dressings would be able to add texture and depth. In an ideal world, these dressings would also be able to be interacted with by the cast.
I also began to research bleechers, though this kind of seating can be seen in this production
Full Performance of Northern Valley Regional High School Demarest’s Production of “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee”.
Though in the video shown it appears that they have used steel decking, and just placed normal chairs upon them. Bleechers are effectively tiered seating and are similar to seating found in stadiums.
However unlike the above seating where each seat is individual the bleechers are made up of a series of long benches. Further information on the final set design can be found here. Again I made a pinterest board in regards to this aspect of the set.
From a lighting perspective and realising from previous production how busy the set could be in terms of actors, I thought the bleechers may be a way to incorporate sidelighting, if I thought it was necessary for the production. I should also note at this point that we were all made fully aware that both the Year 1 and Year 2 performing arts year groups would be on stage, Year 2’s being in principle roles. As such up to 40+ actors may be on stage at any one time, so the bleechers was an ideal solution to this.
Notes on Parts
I read through the character list at the beginning of the script
“25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” Script – Music and Lyrics by William Finn. Book by Rachel Sheinkin
Each character has particular mannerisms and techniques used for thought process
Children
Chip (Kieran) – puberty – athletic/social – Green
Logainne Scwartzandgrubenniere (Faye)– youngest – very aware and driven, speech impediment, body tics Pink
Leaf Coneybear (Dave) – ASD, always amused, big adventure, protective helmet and homemade clothes (new age) Yellow
William Barfee (Perry) – Loud, Combative, fat bully to avoid being picked on ,(he becomes more self aware through the play) spells with his foot – floor lit for “magic foot” Reds moving to orange
Marcy Park (Georgia) – good at everything, perfectionist – Cold,daylight correction
Olive Ostrovsky – Quiet/shy but come out of her shell, absent parents – Purple
Adults
Rona Lisa Perretti (Kiera) – Hostess, ex-champion, treats it like a sporting contest, her day to shine, maybe miss world type over the top
Vice Principal Douglas Panch – Frustrated, not happy about being there, but begins to come round to it, wanting to impress Rona.
Mitch Mahoney – Questions the value of the Bee, wants to comfort the kids when they make a mistake
Carl Grubenierre – Trains Schwarzy, competitive
Dan Schwarz – Laid back
Leafs family – Academically superior to leaf, surprised by leafs success
Olives Mom – Fantasy character (From ashram (spiritual hermitage in india)
Olives Dad – Fantasy character, olive hopes he’ll be in the audience after work
Jesus Christ – Comes to speller in need
As can be seen I thought it would be good from a lighting perspective to have each character using a different colour, after reading the script it was apparent that each individual undergoes a certain amount of growth as the performances proceeds. I planned that the original character colours would be on the colder end of the spectrum, and as they developed to add warmer hues. To help decide on the character colours I looked at various colour mood diagrams and colour theory.
Unfortunately some of the links for the associated images appear to now be broken, but I paid particular attention to this image
and the text found here http://digitalskratch.com/color-psychology/
I was only going to use specific colours for the children and not so much for the adults, though the main adult characters also undergo change but not as drastically as the children of the piece.
My final process in the preliminary stages was to listen to the songs, bought via an online shop, whilst reading the script to make some initial notes on the different pieces.
| Song title | Page# | Performed by | Action | Mood | Colours |
| The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee | 1 | Rona, Olive, Barfee, Chip, Schwarzy, Marcy, Coneybear | Character Introduction | Music quite upbeat | Bright, colours to show different characters
Some spots, and go back to memory At end Rona talks to audience, maybe bring up light on audience, could be a stooge on their phone – moving head to highlight |
| The Rules | 8 | Rona, Panch, Mitch, Olive, Barfee, Chip, Schwarzy, Marcy, Coneybear | Focus on ensemble of cast
Rona solo pg10 Focus onto judges |
Serious | |
| My Friend the Dictionary | 14 | Rona, Olive, Chip, Schwarzy, Coneybear | Start Olive solo saving seat for fictional parent, indian palette for mum
Come back to solo lighting Song come back to gym part way through then back to solo Bring up lights at end as ensemble join in Projections words/turning pages |
Singing about her life | |
| Pandemonium | 21 | Mitch, Olive, Barfee, Chip, Schwarzy, Marcy, Coneybear | Ensemble,
Slow chase in parts |
Big number
Could be quite frenetic in parts Possible dance number |
|
| I’m Not That Smart | 28 | Coneybear | Solo, happy with who is and self aware, explaining himself | ||
| Magic Foot | 33 | Rona, Mitch, Olive, Barfee, Chip, Schwarzy, Marcy, Coneybear | Starts with Barfee solo, foot gobo(projection) Can we make gobo in laser cutter
Could light lower area of stage more to highlight feet |
Solo but could bring in a dance with cast
bigband |
Magical
Moving head gobo |
| Magic Foot Playoff | 35 | Rona, Mitch, Olive, Barfee, Chip, Schwarzy, Schwarzy, Marcy, Coneybear | |||
| Pandemonium (reprise) | 37 | Panch, Mitch, Olive, Barfee, Chip, Schwarzy, Marcy, Coneybear | As song 3 more focus on Chip and Mitch
Stops with focus on Mitch |
||
| Chip goodbye | 39 | Olive, Barfee, Schwarzy, Marcy, Coneybear | Goodbye lighting as used for audience members previously | ||
| Rona Moment #2 | 39 | Rona | Focus on Rona | Subdued | |
| Prayer for the comfort of Counsellor | 39 | Rona, Mitch, Olive, Barfee, Schwarzy, Marcy, Coneybear | Mitch Solo with audience member | Uplifting, joyish. Into goodbye
Once audience goes off more upbeat |
|
| Chips Lament Intro | 42 | In audience | Movers to follow chip | ||
| Chips Lament | 42 | Chip | As aboveColour changes depending on sone mood | ||
| Woe is Me | 45 | Rona, Mitch, Olive, Barfee, Chip, Schwarzy, Marcy, Dan Dad, Carl Dad | Schwarzy song with dads
Ensemble at end |
Doing things for others not to please herself Lament
Almost rappy |
|
| Spelling Montage | 49 | Panch, Olive, Barfee, Schwarzy, Marcy, Coneybear | Actors called one by one to spell
Gets faster to frenetic then slows right down |
Metronome beats | Go through actors colours as their turn |
| I’m Not That Smart (reprise) | 52 | Coneybear | As 4 | Add sadness but lifts | |
| Coneybear Goodbye | 53 | ||||
| I Speak Six Languages | 54 | Rona, Olive, Schwarzy, Marcy | Marcy solo | Dancing | |
| Jesus | 56 | Rona, Olive, Schwarzy, Marcy | Gospel | ||
| Three Spellers Remain! Sluice! | 58 | Panch gets angry | |||
| The I Love You Song | 62 | Olive, Olives Mom, Olives Dad | Olive solo in fantasy land
Olives mom indian palette Change as both parents and then goes back to solo, gets colder |
Fanstasy , love | Purple, pinks and orange, blues |
| Crepuscule | 66 | ||||
| Woe Is Me (reprise) | 67 | Mitch, Schwarzy | As 10 goes to goodbye | Sadness | |
| How Exciting | 68 | Rona | Rona solo | ||
| Rona Moment #3 | 68 | Rona | |||
| Second (part 1) | 69 | Rona, Mitch, Olive, Barfee, Chip, Schwarzy, Marcy, Coneybear | Olive solo
Barfee solo some softness toward olive |
Wanting to win, with some reservation | |
| Weltanschauung | 72 | Rona, Mitch, Barfee, Chip, Schwarzy, Marcy, Coneybear | Barfee Solo
Stops and looks to olive merges into next piece |
||
| Olive & Barfee Pas De Deux | 72 | Rona, Mitch, Chip, Schwarzy, Marcy, Coneybear | Romantic dance falling in love
Merges to next piece |
||
| Second (part 2) | 73 | Rona, Mitch, Olive, Barfee, Chip, Schwarzy, Marcy, Coneybear | Olive Barfee duet
Merge to next piece |
Realises he doesn’t just want to stomp on Olive, gives him the go ahead to win | |
| The Champion | 74 | Rona, Mitch, Chip, Schwarzy, Marcy, Coneybear | Uplifting champ | Oranges, golds, warm | |
| Epilogues | 76 | ||||
| Finale | 78 | Rona, Panch, Mitch, Olive, Barfee, Chip, Schwarzy, Marcy, Coneybear | Full cast leading to bows | ||
| Bows | 79 | Rona, Panch, Mitch, Olive, Barfee, Chip, Schwarzy, Marcy, Coneybear | Goodbye with front light cover all stage with goodbye | ||
| Exit Music | 79 |
The script is effectively separated by these songs, and it is these songs that lead us into the new scene as well as a device for giving us the information needed for each role. As mentioned these were just my preliminary notes and some were off the mark, but some remained true. Again as we had such a large cast I began to think about how the extra cast would be used and assumed that some of the songs would be dance numbers, I have noted above where I thought some dance numbers may fall, again this was a fairly accurate assumption on these.
Research following from Directors meeting
We were given our job roles before the half-term break, during this time I was required to prepare for a directors meeting as well as come up with a schedule of work, my personal schedule can be found here, and my teams schedule is Spelling Bee Lighting Timetable.
During this time I did further research on past productions to see how they may look and feel. Again this was all really preliminary work toward the director meeting.
I then produced the following document for the meeting, this document did get amended during the meeting, the italics are the directors notes.
Lighting.docx – notes taken by LX2
Main points
- Audience immersion so it feels like they are coming into a gym instead of a theatre
- Actors go into the audience
- Cyc to be used
- Original score (I wondered if they were going to alter the arrangements)
- Colours for each role – the director did not think that this was a viable option for lighting
- Possibly going to be in a fantasy setting, this would be confirmed later in the week.
- Some song numbers are dance numbers as well – though specifics to be confirmed
- Each primary speller will have a posse of similarly dressed actors – effectively supporter of that speller. Dressed similarly and similar mannerisms.
- Chip enters via auditorium at beginning.
- Correct and incorrect answers from audience will need to have different lighting states.
Matt Cooper 
