Marcy Park

***Gramercy or Marcy Park*** is one of the 6 main characters of the musical comedy; *The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee* by William Finn. She is Speller #7. She places 4th in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, spelling camouflage wrong.

## Appearances

### Appears in

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

### Debut

C-R-E-P-U-S-C-U-L-E: 2002 .Barrington Stage Company; 2004 .Off-Broadway; 2005 .Broadway; 2005

## Appearance

**Crepuscule:** Gramercy has fair skin, dark brown hair that's in 2 low ponytails. She wears a white, long-sleeved turtleneck, a dark red sweater vest, a brown pleated skirt, and black Mary Janes. She wears a number "10" speller tag that has her name embroidered under the number.

**Barrington Stage Company world Premiere: [At this point, Gramercy is canonically Korean-American.]** Gramercy has fair skin, black hair that's in a swept-up half up/down look, with a blue ribbon. She wears a white, short-sleeve blouse with a Peter Pan collar, under a navy blue sweater vest, a muted blue plaid skirt, white knee-length socks and black Mary Janes. She wears a number "100" speller tag that has her name embroidered under the number.

**OBC:[At this point, Marcy has a canonical name change.]** Marcy has fair skin, black hair that's in 2 semi-low ponytails with small green ribbons, and blunt bangs. She wears a white, short-sleeve blouse with a Peter Pan collar under a sleeveless plaid school dress that's in navy green & blue plaid that reaches to her mid thigh. On the uniform, she has a school emblem or patch. She wears black shorts [pink ruffled shorts on Adult Nights], white knitted knee-length socks, and black Mary Janes. Her accessories are a navy blue cross tie facing vertically down, and a silver cross necklace.

**2006 Season:** Marcy's appearance kept the same, except for the hair, cross tie & necklace. Marcy now has curtain-blunt bangs, and her hair is pulled a little higher. She has the cross tie facing horizontally, and the cross necklace has been removed.

Crepuscule Gramercy?, 2002.Barrington Stage Company Gramercy, 2004.Second Stage Theatre Marcy, 2005.Broadway Marcy, 2006.
## Character Background

> ***"The ultimate over-achiever, Marcy has never been given another option. She comes from a family where excellence is expected and so simply produced. A parochial school student, she believes God, too, expects perfection. She sees her a mass of problems but she keeps them to herself. Having moved often because of her parents' work, she knows she can beat the local competition. Her many talents include piano, dance, martial arts, baton twirling, doing cartwheels, splits, tap-dancing, All-American Hockey, and much more."***
>
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## Backstory & Synopsis

**Pre-Spelling Bee:** Marcy is a 12 year old girl that attends Our Lady of Intermittent Sorrows and lives in Carmel Hills, New York. She is an extreme overachiever that only sleeps 3 hours a night, hides in the bathroom cabinet, is not allowed to cry, is required to balance a ton of extracurricular activities and sports. She does All-American Hockey, fencing, baton twirling, gymnastics, tap dancing, ballet, martial arts, plays the piano, dance, and much more to any interpretation. She placed 9th in the National Spelling Competition of the previous as a representative of Virginia, was on track of being the youngest high school freshman in parochial school, and speaks 6 languages. She is canonically Korean-American and is the token gifted kid.

**Spelling Bee:** Marcy enters the gymnasium being a newbie in Putnam County; introducing herself as a recent transfer and talks about Washington D.C.; where they treat you well for spelling; as she did the previous year. She is then interfered by Chip and he lets his hand out and they shake hands as an introduction. She is very quiet but very good at what she does. After the opening number, she is told by Chip to not be nervous and watch what he does. She says, "Don't worry. ***I'm not nervous.***" Marcy's first word was "phylactery". She asked for the pronunciation, definition, and usage in a sentence. The definition was "either of 2 small square leather boxes containing religious text, traditionally worn on the left arm and head by Jewish men during morning weekday prayers". The sentence was "Billy, put down that *phylactery* -- We're Episcopalian." She spells the word correctly and She walks back to the bleachers and Tolentino was called. He told her that he was at Nationals with her and asked if she remembered him. She said she only remembered the top 10. **(The next word has been removed from the MTI show version but available in the Broadway show.)** Marcy's next word was "raconteur". She asked for the definition, and usage in a sentence. The definition was "a person who excels at telling anecdotes".

## Trivia

* Marcy placed 9th in the National Spelling Bee Competition of the previous year, with Chip Tolentino. It is implied that he placed lower than 10th.
* Deborah S. Craig named the character "Gramercy", a pun to Gramercy Park, the neighborhood in New York City; during the workshops and kept Marcy as a nickname for Korean-American representation.
* Prospect Park was also a name made by Craig, but wasn't accepted.
* Gramercy was then changed to Marcy, and the name has not been changed since.
* She is the only character of the main 6 to have the least lines with 44, near to Chip; with 62 lines.
* Park wrote a book called "Not Living Up To Expectations". It did not live up to expectations. [***Fanon***: It most definitely got nominated for a Raspberry for "Worst Original Book". It didn't win.]
* In the song, "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee Massacres the 12 Days of Christmas", she gets the 7th Book of Moses & is questioned by Schwarzy that there's only ***five*** existing.
* Marcy and Chip are the only 2 characters that have an individual promotional poster for Spelling Bee; both words as well, ***revolve*** around the character.Marcy Park Promotional Poster, 2006.Chip Tolentino Promotional Poster, 2006.