25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee
Music and Lyrics by William Finn Book by Rachel Sheinkin
Conceived by Rebecca Feldman Additional Material by Jay Reiss
Originally Directed on Broadway by James Lapine
Originally produced on Broadway by
David Stone, James L. Nederlander, Barbara Whitman, Patrick Catullo,
Barrington Stage Company, Second Stage Theatre
2012
How do you spell B-R-O-A-D-W-A-Y- H-I-T? The show ran for over two years on Broadway and gained two Tony awards in the process. Recently it played a very successful season in London at the Donmar Warehouse – this is the first professional production in England since that run.
This riotous musical comedy is guaranteed to have you cachinnating (use it in a sentence, request a definition?). Six kids face off in the battle of their lives. The competition is intense. The words are outrageous.
Three adults adjudicate the proceedings: a nostalgic former spelling bee winner, a mildly insane Vice Principal and The Official Comfort Counsellor completing his community service to the State of New York. Both tender and sardonic, this hilarious musical of overachievers’ angst brings you inside the spelling championship to end them all where the participants learn that winning isn’t everything and that losing doesn’t necessarily make you a loser!
“Can you spell irresistable? Drat! I mean, i-r-r-e-s-i-s-t-i-b-l-e? …precisely the word for this entirely adorable new musical.” —The New York Times
“It’s spelled W-O-N-D-E-R-F-U-L” Wall Street Journal