www.lisahowardnyc.com | Lisa Howard
The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee
Circle in the Square
1633 Broadway
New York, NY
May 2, 2005 - January 20, 2008
(Note: Lisa played her final performance in the Broadway Company of Spelling Bee on April 15, 2007.)
Official Show Website: www.spellingbeethemusical.com
Production Team
Music & Lyrics by William Finn
Concept by Rebecca Feldman
Book by Rachel Sheinkin
Directed by James Lapine
Choreography by Dan Knechtges
Music Direction by Vadim Feichtner
Original Cast
Derrick Baskin, Deborah S. Craig, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Dan Fogler, Lisa Howard, Celia Keenan-Bolger, Jose Llana, Jay Reiss, Sarah Saltzberg
The Story
In The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, six young people in the throes of puberty, overseen by grown-ups who barely managed to escape childhood themselves, learn that winning isn’t everything and that losing doesn’t necessarily make you a loser. A sold-out smash at Off-Broadway's Second Stage Theatre, and now playing at Broadway's Circle in the Square, Spelling Bee has been called "irresistible and entirely lovable" by the New York Times.
The show opened May 2, 2005 at Circle In The Square, 1633 Broadway (between Broadway and 8th Avenue - at 50th Street) and closed January 20, 2008.
Articles
The Ladies of the Bee | Broadway.com | Posted September 3, 2006
Gypsies Cast Their "Spell" | Posted December 11, 2005
DIVA TALK: Chatting with Spelling Bee's Lisa Howard | Playbill.com | Posted June 30, 2005
Lisa Howard and Jay Reiss... | New York Times | Posted March 18, 2005
“Spelling Bee holds its own, laugh for laugh, with any of them. Plenty of credit goes to Mr. Lapine, who keeps some kind of order over all the silliness; it also belongs to the actors who play the grownups. As hostess and past champion Rona Lisa Peretti and troubled vice principal Panch, Lisa Howard and Jay Reiss are not just funny themselves, but the cause of fun in others. As each audience volunteer in turn encounters a carefully tailored putdown, I again found myself wondering: Are they making this up as they go?”
- Jeremy McCarter, The New York Sun 05/03/05
“They don't get to sweat the syllables in words like ‘weltanschauung,’ but Lisa Howard and Jay Reiss provide a fair portion of the comic zest in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee...Ms. Howard brings a tart blend of geniality and officiousness to the role of Rona Lisa Peretti, the hostess at the county meet, who has fond memories of her own glory days as a spelling champ.”
- New York Times 03/04/05
“The stream of new faces heading to the microphone gives the event host, Lisa Howard, plenty of opportunities for comic spontaneity. At least, Ms. Howard's introductions sounded like improv, as when she said that the favorite TV show of a volunteer with floppy, Scott Baio hair was ‘Joanie Loves Chachie.’”
- The New York Sun 02/08/05
“Presiding over the competition, with a cheerfulness as sturdy as her shellacked coiffure, is Ms. Rona Lisa Peretti, herself a former champ, played with implacable perkiness by Lisa Howard.”
- New York Times 02/08/05
“Lisa Howard has all the pride of a former pageant winner.”
- Newsday.com
“Also excellent is Lisa Howard as Rona Lisa Peretti, the Bee's hostess and one-time champion. With a dry wit perfectly suited to the color commentary she provides (and her ad-libs for audience volunteer spellers are often as funny as Sheinkin's scripted barbs), she also provides a vital, sweet-natured connecting bridge between childhood and adulthood. More than anyone else, she seems best in tune with both the immature anxieties of her young charges and the world-weary rumblings of her adult coworkers.”
- Talkin’ Broadway - Off Broadway, by Matthew Murray 02/07/05