Eight times a week, Brad Weinstock runs around clad in a Boy Scout uniform and “dorky” glasses that strap around his head, all while singing a comical number titled “My Unfortunate Erection.”
The Communication senior plays 12-year-old Isaac “Chip” Berkowitz in the Chicago production of the Tony Award-winning musical “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.” The production began previews in late March and opened April 11.
“It’s surreal,” Weinstock said. “I’m still waiting for them to call and say, ‘You don’t have the job anymore.'”
He came across the part when he performed in the New York Showcase at Northwestern, where top students in the theatre program perform in front of professionals in the industry.
One of the panelists was a casting director for “The Spelling Bee.” The director invited Weinstock to audition for Chip during Winter Break and after four callbacks, he got the job.
The actor’s excitement shows as he talks about his character and his transition from full-time student – he is taking one class, though not for credit – to full-time actor. He describes his character, Chip, as an overachieving “alpha male” with an ego.
“But he’s a spelling-bee alpha male, so he’s not that cool, I guess,” Weinstock said. “He’s a bit of a good Jewish boy.”
Along with singing about his character’s erection, Weinstock said he enjoys the improvisation with audience participants and coming on “as Jesus later in the show … Jesus with a soul patch.”
“One of the big struggles every night is just not to laugh on stage,” Weinstock said. “There are six of us on stage just biting our lips.”
The cast includes six actors in their twenties and thirties who play preteens. The actors researched their roles by watching movies like “Spellbound,” seeing an actual spelling bee and taking a field trip to fifth- and sixth-grade classrooms.
Since he is 10 years older than Chip, Weinstock said he draws on a spelling bee memory from elementary school to relate to his character.
“In fourth grade I was in a spelling bee with three other people, and we kept going back and forth,” Weinstock said. “I got out on the world phlegm because I forgot the ‘g.’ I was devastated.”
During the show, four random audience members take part in the spelling bee. This gives the cast a chance to improvise and makes each performance unique, Weinstock said.
“We’ll have participants that were in national spelling bees, and sometimes it’s hard to get them out,” he said. “Sometimes we have 7-year-old kids who can’t stop laughing.”
Weinstock said his acting career began by accident.
He said when he was young, he walked in on auditions for “The Wizard of Oz” by chance. He got the role of the Tin Man after singing a rendition of “Happy Birthday.”
Weinstock has taken voice lessons since seventh grade. He performed in 12 plays and musicals while at NU, including two years of the Waa-Mu and Dolphin shows.
Weinstock said he is under contract with “The Spelling Bee” for six months. If his contract is extended, he said he will most likely stay on with the show, but he plans to move to New York once it’s over.
After shows, Weinstock said, audience members wait for the cast in the lobby to ask for autographs and pictures. But Weinstock said he hasn’t gained an ego because of his newfound fame.
“It’s completely new for me, and it kind of makes me laugh,” he said. “But it’s kind of fun too.”
From a hectic rehearsal schedule to eight performances per week, Weinstock acknowledged that his new lifestyle can be stressful. But all he has to do is look at the crowd for motivation, he said.
“It’s about the audience,” Weinstock said. “You have to remember why we love it. It’s that feeling we get when the audience is with us.”
Reach Jasett Chatham at [email protected].
