A familiar role keeps him busy in 'Bee'
Emerson graduate Miguel Cervantes plays struggling speller all summer
Miguel Cervantes jumped at the chance to play a loser.
"Are you kidding? I put that Boy Scout uniform on and I'm the ultimate 12-year-old alpha male," says the actor, who joins the company of spellers - only one of whom can win - in "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee," which runs at Barrington Stage Company through July 12. "That's what makes his losing so spectacular."
With music and lyrics by William Finn ("Falsettos") and a Tony Award-winning book by Rachel Sheinkin, "Spelling Bee" takes a quirky contest and turns it into a hilarious and heartbreaking exploration of adolescence. Cervantes is returning to the role of Chip Tolentino, the previous year's middle school spelling bee champ, who becomes the first speller eliminated when he becomes distracted.
"I played Chip in the first national tour, and then made my Broadway debut in the role," says the Emerson College graduate. "It's been my big break, and I was so disappointed that the tour didn't stop in Boston." (The national tour was separate from the production that ran at the Wilbur Theatre for three months in 2006.)
But after playing the role on tour and on Broadway for a year, why return?
"The improvisational nature of [the show] means it's never the same old, same old," says Cervantes, who made a name for himself in Boston theater with his breakout performance in SpeakEasy Stage Company's blockbuster "Bat Boy: The Musical." "Every night new audience members come up to join us as spellers, and the dynamic always changes."
Besides working with the handful of audience members who become contestants, Cervantes is also able to get up close and personal with the rest of the audience when Chip is forced to sell candy to the spectators after he's eliminated from the bee. His song: "My Unfortunate Erection."
"It's a great moment," he says, "because kids in the audience don't listen to the words, they just can't believe someone's throwing candy to them, and adults can't believe there's a funny song about this."
After its Barrington run, the production heads to the North Shore Music Theatre in August. Cervantes says he's happy to be busy for the entire summer, noting that it's often feast or famine for young actors. Recently he participated in workshops of new musicals by Duncan Sheik ("Spring Awakening") and by Michael John LaChiusa, an adaptation of the movie "Giant" that will have its premiere at the Signature Theatre in Virginia next year.
"I was also cast in 'Altar Boyz' and 'Spelling Bee' at the same time," Cervantes says, "so I had to choose between them."
The decision was easy, he says. "Bill Finn called me personally. A couple of really talented people have worn the uniform, so I was honored that he asked me."
Finn says there are no stars in "Spelling Bee," but if there were, "Miguel is it. He has amazing energy and stage presence.
"Besides," the composer adds, "it's good to have a few performers who've had experience with the characters, to show the new ones the level they need to get up to."
Two of Cervantes's castmates are right out of college. One, Hannah DelMonte, took a bus from her college in Ohio to audition for the show, says Finn, who admired her spunk as well as her talent. Another, Molly Ephraim, was given a day off from rehearsal to go to her graduation at Princeton.
"She's not exactly a novice," says Finn, "since she starred as Little Red Riding Hood in the [2002] Broadway revival of 'Into the Woods.' "
Although this is a new production of the musical, Barrington Stage artistic director Julianne Boyd says she was eager to have the show that was developed there return home to many of the people on the original creative team.
"We sent it to New York knowing it was pretty polished," she says, "but it's great to be able to bring it back and have the original costume, set designer, and choreographer tweak it. It's not completely reimagined - it's more like a quarter turn of a kaleidoscope." 