Are you talking about The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee?
I just played piano for a teenaged Broadway revue and we did two songs from that musical. The kids (12-18 year olds) who have seen it say it’s wonderful. The music director, a high school teacher, has seen it twice and wants to see it again. I plan to see it now that I’ve done those two songs. They were my favorite songs in the revue.
From what I could gather, the story is about a group of children who achieve high enough scores to be able to compete in the Spelling Bee. But all of the children are either dysfunctional themselves, or come from dysfunctional families.
One of the songs I played was called, “I’m Not That Smart.” The kid is a major geek/spaz who “makes his own clothes” (a bath towel for a cape, a bicycle helmet). He is given an extremely hard word, acouchi, and during the song, he acts like a fool trying to stall for time because he thinks he’s too stupid to spell the word. He goes on and on about how he’s homeschooled and all his siblings think he’s a “dumb kid.” He talks about his hair and he ad libs a ditty. Eventually he confesses that he forgot the word. The exasperated moderator feeds him “acouchi” one more time, and the kid spells it perfectly. He is overjoyed that maybe, after all, he is really smart, at least at spelling.
It’s a touching song, and I know so many “geeky” kids who would identify with the kid singing it.
The other song I played was called “The I Love You Song.” The girl singing the song is apparently ignored by her busy parents, and she is given the word “chimerical,” which means wildly fanciful and imaginative. While she is waiting to spell the word, she sings about how she wishes her parents would be–telling her that they love her and that she is a winner and that’s she’ beautiful. She wants them to come home from their trip and be with her. It’s a very heart-rending song, and I’m sure many of you know children who live with these types of parents who just ignore them.
I don’t know much about Mama Mia because I don’t like ABBA, but I know a lot of young synchronized skating teams (under age 10) who have skated to music from this musical. I suppose it might have bad themes in it, but most of the time, the coaches stay away from controversial themes for little ones.
Of course, everyone skates to Grease, too, and I think that musical is horribly evil. So please be cautious.
Try googling the musicals for plot synopses and reviews.
