If you are confident in your spelling skills, perhaps you would like to bring yourself to the last theater production by University Theatre – “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.”
Six spellers enter the spelling championship of a lifetime.
“Spelling Bee” brings you to the world of Putnam County where community members come and compete in spelling out the word with some crews. Every show, four audiences will have the opportunity to come on the stage and participate in the spelling competition.
“Community, sunny and welcoming” are three words that Guest Director Tara Wibrew described the show. She hopes that the show can be a space where audiences and performers can meet and communicate with each other.
The production will take place at the Hope Theatre in the Miller Theatre Complex, which is a smaller space so that the audience and actors are closer and feel more intimate.
Wibrew has been working at professional theaters such as Oregon Contemporary Theatre for over a decade. In winter term, she was invited to direct her first show at the University Theatre: “Antigone.” She recalled the experience as very positive and is excited to come back and work with both new and familiar faces.
Although the lead director is a professional artist, University Theatre is mostly run by students. They work as actors, designers, backstage technicians and beyond.
Annika McNair and Sara Smith, co-costume designer for the show, have been tracking their work hours of a couple hundred hours total, which are spent in meetings, research and tracking down clothing items to use with countless fittings. The costume construction, the process of actually making the costume is done by a team of student workers and lab students.
Students have been working at the costume studio on the second floor of the Miller Theatre Complex since January on lighting designs, sounds designs, stage designs and more.
Wibrew said the academic space in theater has unique elements compared to professional theater. She said that student theater tends to have a greater sense of care that she feels “everyone cares.”
She said, “It’s really delightful to be in a room with a bunch of people who just want to get creative and try things and be as honest as possible on stage.”
Wibrew said students are willing to take risks to explore ways to take care of the audience, which professionals can lose sometimes over the course of their career.
University Theatre will run the show on May 23, 24, 30, 31, June 1, 5, 6, 7 and 8 at 7:30 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays and at 2:00 p.m. on Sundays at the Hope Theatre on the east side of campus inside the theater department.
You can find your tickets on the UO Ticket Office online or at the EMU ticket office in person. Student tickets are free with valid student ID at the door from one hour before the show until the seats run out.
If you haven’t brought yourself to the UO theater, this big-bright and heart-beating show may transform your theater experience. Live theater “lets us connect to other humans,” Wibrew said.
