Back on Broadway

Getting the chance to work with Will Smith and Eva Mendes in Hitch was a nice experience but that did not mean Jose Llana had ever had any intention of going Hollywood. The Filipino singing star’s true milieu is the Broadway stage and that is where he will spend the next few months or maybe even a year or two as one of the lead actors in the much talked about new musical The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.

Spelling Bee is a little show that has now become the most exciting summer presentation on the Great White Way this year. Written by Rachel Sheinkin with music by William Finn, it is about six students competing for a trophy, a savings bond worth $200 and a chance to make it to the Spelling Bee finals in Washington. The kids are typical of what you may find in such a contest anywhere. These are the shy, the overachieving, the promiscuous, the misfit, the wacky and the confused adolescents who can spell words like phylactery but cannot make head or tail of their own lives.

Spelling Bee opened with no fanfare at all at the Barrington Stage Company in the Berkshires a year ago. It was not long after that that the rave reviews started coming and people were proclaiming how much they loved it. It soon proved to be so successful it was decided to take Spelling Bee off-Broadway where it opened last February.

The same thing happened. The endearing musical sold out its entire run at the Second Stage Theater in New York. This ended last week but before it said goodbye, there came the biggest news of all. Spelling Bee is opening at the Circle in the Square Theater on Broadway on May 2 with preview performances beginning on April 15.

This is just in time for Spelling Bee to be eligible for the nominations in the next Tony Awards. Given the buzz it has been getting, there is a strong chance the witty musical might duplicate the feat of last year’s Avenue Q. This was another little show that brought several big-budget productions to its knees by winning the Tony Award for Best Musical.

Jose plays Chip Tolentino, last year’s Spelling Bee champion who must now contend not only with new words to learn but also with his raging hormones. His reaction to the latter can be most embarrassing and can make or break his chance to win the contest again. As with the other members of the cast, reviews about Jose’s performance have been excellent and he now adds Chip to his growing list of memorable characters portrayed.

And Jose has been most fortunate to have played some of the best. There was Lun Tha in The King and I, Angel in Rent, the title role in Martin Guerre and most recently Ta in Flower Drum Song opposite Lea Salonga. Motion pictures do seem more glamorous and exciting and Jose, now buffed and darkly handsome, does have the chance of becoming a big movie star. But Broadway is something else and if you can get your hands on a role in something like The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, that gives the opportunity to taste success with every performance, then Hollywood can go hung.

Still on Jose. His version of the classic Filipino song Ngayon is one of those featured in the must-have album Paano Kita Mapasasalamatan, an all-star tribute to the late composer George Canseco, who died of complications from liver cancer and diabetes last Nov. 2004. He was 70 and left behind an amazing body of work that includes some of the most beautiful Filipino songs ever written.

The two-CD, 40-song set boasts of Canseco compositions performed by some of the biggest names in Philippine music today. I can honestly say every one of them has already withstood the test of time. Sharon Cuneta has Dear Heart and Ako ay Pilipino. Basil Valdez sings Ama and Buksan.

There are also Ikaw by Regine Velasquez, Dito Ba? by Nora Aunor, Saan Darating ang Umaga by Rico Puno, Sana by Kuh Ledesma, Salamin ng Buhay by Eugene Villaluz, the title track by Sarah Geronimo and the latest version of Canseco’s very first hit song, Kapantay ay Langit performed by Search for a Star champion Rachelle Ann Go.