High Pressure Spelling Bee + Kids with Issues + Celebrity Guests = All Night Laughtrip!

It's here! It's finally here! Atlantis Productions will be running The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee in Manila!! :-) It will run from March 20 to April 4 at the Carlos P. Romulo Auditorium of the RCBC Building in Makati City.

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While doing my internship at the international headquarters of the World Youth Alliance in Manhattan, New York, I practically saved my intern stipend month after month to fund my Broadway fever. (And I could not be happier to give up food for front and center show tickets! Hehehe, no TKTS booth for me!)

Spelling Bee was one of those that I was fortunate enough to catch. It's a story of a bunch of kids with issues, and the high pressure of the Spelling Bee finals causes them to pop one by one. You have the typical Asian-American perfect kid in Marcy Park, the go! go! go! feminist in Logainne Schwartzandgrubenerre, the struggling-with-puberty Chip Tolentino to mention just a few of my favorites. It's a hilarious cast of characters with the most absurd personality disorders.. halfway through the play you wanna just tell them "Dude, chill, it's just a spelling bee!" But hey, when we were in gradeschool, didn't we all think that our problems were the biggest problems in the world??

As if it wasn't funny enough already, the Broadway version had "guest spellers" in every show. And by "guest spellers" I mean people they plucked out from among the crowd in the theatre lobby before the show started. So imagine some kid, or a sweet old lolo brought onstage along with all those actors, being twirled around and trying to dance to the beat of the musical and also having their turn to spell at the spelling bee! It was totally hilarious.

Now of the Philippine version, Atlantis decided to throw in a special treat -- on top of the guest spellers chosen from the crowd, they're also inviting celebrity guest spellers! They're not revealing the list of celebrities per night, so it's kind of like a lottery game. You'll never know, the guest celebrity speller at your show just might be your crush :-) *wink*

You guys definitely have to catch this! I'm already planning to watch at least 2 shows.

For tickets, I hope you will choose to buy from the World Youth Alliance because tickets bought through them automatically entitles them to a donation per ticket sold. Ticket details below:

Order your tickets for the following dates from WYA:
March 20, 8PM (Friday)
March 21, 8PM (Saturday)
March 22, 3PM (Sunday)
March 22, 8PM (Sunday)
March 27, 8PM (Friday)
March 28, 2PM (Saturday)

March 29, 3PM (Sunday)
April 3, 8PM (Friday)

April 4, 8PM (Saturday)

Tickets come in the following denominations:
Orchestra Php 1,300
Orchestra Side Php 1,100
Lodge Php 900
Lodge Side Php 700
Balcony Php 500

For tickets, call or text 0917-5457225 or email wyaap.frankchiu@gmail.com.

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Click here to see the Broadway cast performing a song from the musical at the 59th Tony Awards.

The Manila run of SPELLING BEE is directed by Bobby Garcia, Choreography by Chari Arespacochaga, Set Design by Tuxqs Rutaquio, Lighting Design by Johnsy Reyes, Costume Design by Twinkle Zamora and Musical Direction by Jojo Malferari.

Meet the cast: