Bee my wife

MANILA, Philippines - Earlier this year, a Mr. Charles McJilton made arrangements with Atlantis Productions so that he could propose to his girlfriend, Sherilyn Siy, at the end of our July 4 performance of the Broadway musical, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. The idea was to make the proposal look like part of the spelling competition itself: so, at a prearranged time during that night’s curtain call, we asked the couple to join us onstage, whereupon Mr. McJilton asked Miss Siy to spell the word “marry.” It was all very exciting — I mean, when the guy who is proposing has a last name like “McJilton,” who knows what can happen — but luckily, it all turned out perfectly. (Probably because her last name is Spanish for “yes.”) No one in the theater that night — not the audience, not the actors, not the crew, not the ushers, nobody — was immune to the romanticism of it all. How could they be? It was a grand, unexpected, romantic gesture, a public declaration of love, and I, for one, found it extremely — what’s the word? — annoying.

Let me explain. I’m as romantic as the next guy, but at the time of that fateful show I was already seriously thinking of asking my theater performer girlfriend Fox to marry me. (Her name is actually Emy Alcid; I call her “Fox” because that’s what comes out when you type out “Emy” on your phone when the T9 Dictionary is on. Also because she’s, well, foxy.) This was a big step. Of course I wanted the proposal to be special — who wouldn’t? But here’s the thing. Every so often, you hear about these grand, original, daring, YouTube-worthy proposals — proposals involving public declarations or fireworks or string quartets or skywriting or God knows what else — and suddenly, getting down on one damn knee and whipping out a ring isn’t special enough. Especially not for actors, nosiree, since we’re supposed to be, by definition, creative. And now, the bar was all that much higher. So when the time came, I would need a grand proposal of my own: something not just original and creative, but personal, too. (Thanks a lot, McJilton.)

Afew months later, it was time. I had the ring and I had the knee: all I needed was a unique way to present one while bending the other. But how to do

the deed? A swanky restaurant with the ring hidden in the dessert? A billboard on EDSA? A bouquet of flowers joined together with a tiny band of gold? Everyone had their suggestions (including my dad, who, as an actor himself, seemed genuinely surprised — and I’m not making this up — that I hadn’t seriously considered skywriting), but none of them seemed to be creative or original enough. More to the point, none of the ideas was personal enough. The last thing I wanted was to look like I’d stolen an idea from someone else.

So I did the only logical thing. I stole an idea from someone else. I would propose during the curtain call of the new run of Spelling Bee!

(Okay, so it wasn’t an original idea. And because it wasn’t original, it was hardly creative. But it was certainly personal: Fox and I are both theater people, after all. We like the same musicals, watch the same shows, go to the same auditions. We had even been introduced, online, by fellow theater artist Frenchie Dy. Why shouldn’t theater itself be a part of this first major step in our lives together?)

As I shared my plans with directors Bobby Garcia and Chari Arespacochaga (both of whom were delighted, but not at all sure that Fox would be stupid enough to actually say yes), it suddenly came to me how I could make this particular Spelling Bee proposal different from the last one: I wouldn’t tell the cast and crew. All they would know was that someone new was going to propose during the curtain call of our Sunday show that week, and that was it. Cathy Azanza, who was playing the host of the fictional spelling bee, would have to be in on it (as she would be the logical character to call someone up on stage), but everyone else — including cast member Shiela Valderrama-Martinez, one of my closest and dearest friends, who later that same day wanted to know when I would finally hurry up and propose already — would be completely in the dark. It would be original, creative and personal, and a big shock to everyone in the theater, onstage and off.

And so it was that on Sunday, Dec. 6, 2009, at about 10 p.m., Cathy interrupted our curtain call to request that a “Miss Emy Alcid” come up onstage, supposedly to claim an item that had been confiscated earlier in the evening. And when Fox got up there, a little befuddled, I got down on one knee and showed her the item in question: an engagement ring. As I took off my ridiculous prop glasses — just to make it clear that it was me talking and not my character — I said what I had been wanting to say for quite a long time now. I admit that the words I chose for that momentous event were pretty unoriginal and laughably uncreative. But they were more personal than any I’d ever said in my life:

“I love you, Fox. I want to spend the rest of my life making you happy. Will you marry me?”

The noise that followed absolutely deafening. In the audience, everyone — including the friends I had invited to witness the event — was applauding; onstage, Shiela and some other cast members were crying; backstage, the stage managers were cheering; and in the control room, one floor up, the tech people were actually screaming. But I didn’t hear any of that. All I heard was one voice, Fox’s voice, saying one beautiful word:

“Yes.”

The setup, the audience, the grand gesture, the reply: it was perfect. I was sure that this was one proposal that would be talked about for a long, long time. (And if I just happened to annoy future generations of boyfriends by raising the bar, well, that was just a bonus.)

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Spelling Bee runs until Dec. 13, 2009 at the Carlos P. Romulo Auditorium, RCBC Plaza, Makati. For tickets call Atlantis Productions at 892-7078 or 749-1187.