The theater heartthrob faces a new challenge

Theater heartthrob Felix Rivera takes on a new challenge as Chip Tolentino in Atlantis’ The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.

As Fil-Am boy scout and spelling champion Chip which was originated on Broadway by Jose Llana, Felix says, “As intelligent and athletic as Chip is, he has yet to discover and deal with some of the realities of puberty which surprise him during the show.”  Although Felix has performed in numerous musicals, Spelling Bee brings him new challenges. He explains, “The challenge with Avenue Q, aside from puppetry, was differentiating two roles. For Spelling Bee, the challenge is to create an organic character of a boy in puberty without trying too hard to act like a kid and end up irritating the audience.”

Also featured are Cathy Azanza, Pheona Baranda, Johann dela Fuente, Rycharde Everley, Carla Guevarra-Laforteza, Noel Rayos, Thea Tadiar Everley and Joel Trinidad.

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is the Tony Award winning Broadway musical comedy about six adolescents vying for the top spot in a competitive county spelling bee. The kids are a lovable, disparate group of outsiders for whom the spelling bee is a way “to not feel rotten.” As the competition moves forward, there is a series of emotional highs and lows, and contestants sing and dance through these ups and downs. There’s also a group of grown-up characters who haven’t quite grown up, members of the audience and surprise celebrity guests. The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee has music and lyrics by William Finn and a book by Rachel Sheinkin.

The Manila run of Spelling Bee marks Atlantis Productions’ 10th anniversary and is directed by Bobby Garcia, musical staging by Chari Arespacochaga, set design by Tuxqs Rutaquio, lighting design by Johnsy Reyes, costume design by Twinkle Zamora, vocal coaching by ManMan Angsico and musical direction by Jojo Malferari. Spelling Bee runs from March 20 to April 4 at Carlos P. Romulo Auditorium, RCBC Plaza, Makati. For tickets, call Atlantis Productions at 892-7078 or 840-1187.

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Several months ago, I learned the story about one of my staff’s niece who suffered a stroke. The girl was 11. She was an active child who played the piano, the violin and was into swimming and badminton. One day without a hint, she had a stroke. That fateful day, she had just come from a swimming party with her cousins. The night before she went to bed, she played her violin as was her habit. In the middle of the night, she woke up to complain that her head was aching. The pain was excruciating that she vomited and passed out. Her parents rushed her to the hospital. The doctors say that a very, very tiny vein on her brain ruptured. For three weeks she was at the ICU. The doctors argued that if the bleeding did not stop, she had to be operated on. My staff’s family prayed so very hard for God’s mercy. And with God’s very powerful hands coupled with the expertise of the neurosurgeons that treated her, the bleeding in her brain stopped. But her left eye was semi-blind, her memory affected and she could not walk. After months of medication and therapy which she still does until now, the girl is able to walk, and her memory and eyesight are back. Her doctors say based on her MRIs (or Magnetic Resonance Imaging) and CT scans (computed tomography) that hers is a rare case of cerebral arteriovenous malformation. Another tiny, tiny vein will rupture again when she reaches age 24. But could an early detection of the symptoms prevent it from happening? Nobody knows.

With medical science’s help, children with damaged brain can live normal lives. Glenn Doman of The Institutes for The Achievement of Human Potential has developed a method to help improve the health and neurological development of normal children and of children who have sustained a brain injury. The institute was founded by Doman and Carl Delacaato who developed an approach to treat children with brain injury and was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1960.

Doman published the book What To Do About Your Brain-Injured Child in 1974, which describes the ideas and techniques used by IAHP. The book lists the many conditions the author regards as being encompassed by “brain injured.”

IAHP also has a program for healthy children. Doman believes that because the neurological development of brain injured children could be speeded, the same should be true of healthy children. IAHP provides a series of books and early education kits called the Gentle Revolution Series, a line of books for parents of normal children, covering topics like reading, math, intelligence, and swimming. 

Doman will visit Manila in March to lecture on the Doman method.