"...the musical keeps humor to the fore"

The World Premier of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee took place at Consolati Performing Arts Center Stage ll in Sheffield. A play about growing up, about children’s insecurities and pressures to perform to parent standards, the musical keeps humor to the fore and music ongoing.

The play opens on a stage set up with ten chairs. A table and two chairs to the left front stage plus a large sign for The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee set the scene for a contest over more than correct spelling. At stake is how children find happiness.

The contestants file in and take their seats. Guidance Counselor Rona Jarret (Lisa Howard) reminisces about how she took first place in a spelling bee as a child and what it meant to her. She and Olive Ostrovsky, a waif-like child sing "My Friend The Dictionary." After a few moments of chaos the contestants settle down and Leaf Coneybear claims he isn’t smart but he can spell. He twitches, contorts his face but still spells his word correctly.

One by one the contestants address the microphone and another word, some very difficult, others unusually simple. Occasionally, Vice Principal Douglas Panch (Jay Reiss) mispronounces a word.

Each speller’s nervous actions and strange ways of dredging up the correct spelling from memory add humor and understanding. Logan Schwartzandgrubenierre (Sarah Sultzberg) writes her work on one sleeve with her other hand, William Barfee (Dan Fagler) uses his foot to spell the word out on the floor in a very light footed dance across the stage as all sing "The Magic Foot."

The cast includes all childhood versions, the pompous chubby but smart boy, the brilliant girl used to being number one and able to speak six languages. Add the “alpha” boy who won last year and who masterfully portrays the boy suffering an erection when his turn to spell comes up.

The imaginative play moves along, running two hours with no intermission. It never lags as each contestant defines a litany of growing pains and unmet needs familiar to the audience, a sense of being unloved, a need to excel, overconfidence in self, a yearning for a solid family.

Musical numbers go from such sad realizations as “I’m Not That Smart” to the “Serenity Prayer,” sung by Comfort Counselor Mitch Mahoney to soften disappointment for the losers. Laugh out loud actions and comments about the happenstances the contestants encounter engender memories of childhood long suppressed.

Guidance Counselor Rona‘s strong stage presence and voice bring stability to the eroding numbers of spellers who lose. Olive Ostrovsky’s (Celia Keenan-Bolger) plaintive voice belies her lack of confidence as well as her spelling acumen.

This funny account of the interior and exterior lives of quirky children teetering on the edge of success or failure with its potential to change lives creates a reminder of what is so easy to forget, all of childhood is not fun.

Tony Award winning composer and Lyricist William Finn and playwright Rachel Sheinkin brought the very funny spoof to life.

Directors Michael Unger and Rebecca Feldman keep the action moving yet enable each actor to provide an understanding of the real pain of childhood. Jen Caprio outfits the cast in costumes that personify each member--striped shirt, striped pants for Coneybear, overalls for Olive who sings about always coming in second, short pants and a tie for the nerdy Barfee.

Beowolf Boritt created a simple but perfect example of a school gym recruited as a setting for the Spelling Bee, even to a basketball hoop hung high above stage front.