by Andrew Lei ‘27 & Andrew Li ‘27
The beauty of Bellarmine theater is that it makes the impossible possible. For example, I (Andrew Li) never thought I’d be able to see Gavin Gibson as a tyrannical, violently unhinged despot terrorizing young children in a spelling bee. Oh wait- that’s totally believable.
Either way, several other actors took great lengths to vanish into their roles and embrace identities they were unfamiliar with. Whether that involved adopting a rare mucus membrane disorder or learning to act like an air-head, following are two interviews with lead actors about what exactly preparing for this production entailed.
Henry Larson ‘26 – Lead Character, “William Barfeé”
Q: Why did you first decide to audition for the Spelling Bee Musical and how were you cast?
A: I decided to audition for Spelling Bee because I wanted to have another shot with a great director, Mr. Lum, who I have worked with beforehand with the spring play last year, Antigone, and I had a very good time with that. So I wanted to see what doing a musical with him would be like and it was a lot of fun! In terms of how it was cast, the main audition was just like the average “seeing who could sing the notes” and seeing who could dance the very difficult choreography that we were given. And, of course, after that there was a callback process to see who could handle the improv stress of the show. And me and about nine or ten other people got callbacks for it, and we read some scenes from the show and just improvised some general situations. And after that, the cast list came out and I was cast!
Q: Describe your rehearsal process for the musical. What were some of your favorite moments?
A: At first, because our vocal director and choreographer were trying to figure out some stuff, Mr. Lum decided to block the entire show for the first couple of weeks with us. The fun part about those rehearsals was just about figuring out characters and improvising sections to see what bits of character worked. Another fun part was making up choreography to songs we were doing, especially when we just did a total butchering of choreography for “Magic Foot” and “Pandemonium”… but those were great and fun to do! One moment that I don’t think is talked about a lot is this little rehearsal we did called the “Sitzprobe”–essentially, we practiced with the band for the first time and saw all the musical elements come to life. In vocal rehearsals, we’d just practiced with our pianist, but of course the band is where the whole show comes alive. It’s very magical, especially when you practice the big numbers of the show. Some people were even crying by the end of it.
Q: Describe your actual performances (wow, six of them!). How did those feel and were there any special/favorite moments?
A: The shows themselves were so fun to do because, of course, Spelling Bee calls for audience participation. And when you get those, you don’t know what the heck is going to happen… who’s going to play a character, who’s going to win the Spelling Bee, etc. So it’s very fun to go with the challenge. And for the shows themselves, especially with my character William Barfeé, I really wanted him to be realistic even though the play seems sarcastic and mean with a lot of its characters.. I wanted him to be relatable and funny and empathetic to the crowd, and that’s how I did it with each dance! I made sure that people were hitting their marks but also reacting to the character, and it was essentially a dream come true!
Q: Did anything go wrong or unexpected? If so, how did you and the cast recover?
A: Oh boy, where to start! For the first performance, we had an incident during “Pandemonium” where one of our audience participants was supposed to spell “cow”–my father, in fact! He spelled it “kau”–and that event had never happened to us before, so we had to quickly improvise a way to get my dad off stage and keep “Pandemonium” rolling along. Essentially, our moderator Gavin Gibson–playing Vice Principal Panch–simply rang the bell and said “goodbye” and then we continued with the number! Also, most recently, in our closing show, actor Adrian Ruiz was supposed to spell “capybara” and accidentally spelled “acouchi”, mixing up his lines slightly. But then he realized it and said in character, “That’s not the right word!” Thankfully, our moderator Panch was able to further divert the mistake by saying, “Oh, you spelled a random word correctly… you’re still in!” And that was very much clever and in character by them both.
Q: What is one takeaway you have from your role in this show and can we expect to see you in future ones?
A: One takeaway I’ve gotten from Barfeé is just how much heart you really have to put in to do something… because William especially has a lot of heart when it comes to Spelling Bees, and you can tell by all the things he does like his vocals and his choreography and his Magic Foot. And despite all of his injuries and allergies and other things during the musical, he’s able to prevail through it all and–spoiler alert!–win the competition. In terms of future shows, I’m currently starring in Bellarmine’s next theater production Network with actors like Kavan Bhatia and Aiden Mangalick, and I play the role of Max, the main character’s best friend. And we just started rehearsals so you can definitely expect to see me in more!
(Funnily enough, while interviewing Henry, I had to ask him to spell several of the names he mentioned… what a great use of his Spelling Bee talents!)
Adrian Ruiz ‘27 – Lead Character, “Leaf Coneybear”
Q: Why did you first decide to audition for the Spelling Bee Musical and how were you cast?
A: I decided to audition at first because I had been doing theater for a while and I was starting to get really good parts, and also a bunch of my friends were doing it, so I figured it would be a fun time. To be completely honest, I was sort of disappointed with my original role (the father of one of the spellers) just because while it has some fun moments, it’s not what you’d call a leading part. But at the same time, Mr. Lum definitely knew what he was doing when he casted us. He’s a super character and acting-oriented director, so he’ll cast us just based on whoever fits each part best. I think the casting was pretty perfect for this show, and I think everyone’s played their parts so well.
Q: Describe your rehearsal process for the musical. What were some of your favorite moments?
A: The rehearsal process for this show was super interesting, and not really like any other musical I’ve ever done. Mr. Lum taught us the blocking for the show first (meaning telling us where we stood and what we did for each scene) and had us do some character work, and then for the rest of the time leading up to the show we learned vocals and dance, meaning we got to sit with all of that character work for the entire process and develop our characters on our own time, on top of all of the work Mr. Lum did with us during rehearsals. It was a super cool process, and I love how Mr. Lum focuses so much on acting and character development. Spelling Bee is a musical, sure, and those aspects of it are super important, but on top of all that it’s a super intense character show, with a bunch of weird, wacky characters we have to portray, so placing such a focus on acting helped us portray them so much better than we would’ve otherwise.
Q: How did it feel playing a lead character (Leaf Coneybear) after the original actor had a time conflict? Was it difficult adapting to this character because you had such limited time to prepare?
A: It felt pretty amazing being able to step in for a lead character, even if it was on such short notice. Leaf was a character who admittedly I wanted to play even before auditions had started, and my director knew that (he always asks if we have any characters who we would be especially interested in playing), so to be chosen to step in for the part was a huge honor, and both my director and my double (Kavan) helped me every step of the way in fleshing out the character in time for performances. It really did work out perfectly. My double got an amazing opportunity for his future and as a result of that I got a huge opportunity in getting to play Leaf. I wouldn’t have wanted it to go any other way. The actual process of preparing for Leaf was a bit of a blur, as I only had a month and for most of it I was still trying to process that it was even happening, but again both my director and my double helped me so much in preparing for it and I can’t thank them enough. In the end I think it all worked out, and I had such a fun time preparing for and playing Leaf.
The good news is that we’ll only have to wait a couple of months before Bellarmine’s next theater production, Network, directed by Mr. Canavese.
Bells, make sure to keep an eye out for Henry, Adrian, and all the other talented actors and performers as they undertake a one-in-a-kind adaptation of this 1976 film.
In the meantime, let’s not forget the successes of this year’s 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee and all that went into its production; its depiction of a ragtag group of young students chasing their dreams truly resonated with audiences, playfully reminding us all that “Life is Pandemonium”, and that above all else, we should never stop having fun.