The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee – Courtesy of Zach Rosing. Used with permission
Following the box office and critical success of last season’s “Litte Shop of Horror,” The Indiana Repertory Theatre, opened Friday with another musical. This year’s 2024-2025 season opener is “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.” It’s an affectionate musical comedy with music and lyrics by William Finn, with a book written by Rachel Sheinkin, conceived by Rebecca Feldman with additional material by Jay Reiss.
Brett Mutter & ensemble. Courtesy of Zah Rosing. Used with permission.
The show, which premiered on Broadway in 2005, focuses on a fictional spelling bee set in a geographically ambiguous Putnam Valley Middle School. Six socially awkward adolescents compete in the Bee, run by three eccentric grown-ups. A unique aspect of the show is that three real audience members are invited on stage to compete in the spelling bee alongside the six young characters.
The show was directed and choreographed adroitly by Patdro Harris, who was quoted in the printed program as saying that the show is “wonderful play about words, family and dreams.” The cast of “Spellers” included Matheus Barbee (Chip Tolentino), Devan Mathias (Logaine Schartzandgrubenniere), Dominque Lawson (Leaf Coneybear), Brett Mutter (William Barfee), Anya Schultz (Marcy Park) and Adriana D. Burks (Olivia Ostrovsky). The “Adults” were Michelle Lauto (Rena Lisa Peretti), Ryan Artzberger (Douglas Peach) and RJ Griffith (Mitch Mahoney). All Equity Union actors, the cast members are mostly Chicago-based with Artzenberger, Mathias, and Mutter, hailing from Indy.
Members of the ideally cast ensemble were all uniformly talented, but several stood out for their unique characterizations. They included Artzenberger as Vice Principal Douglas Beach as the official word pronouncer whose dead pan delivery and improv is simply hilarious. Others were Barbee as the overachiever boy scout Tolentino who suffers a huge blow to his ego when he is misspells a word that eliminates him from the Bee, Mutter as arrogant William Barfee who holds an advantage as a consummate speller due to his “magic foot, Mathias as the stressed out daughter of two overbearing dads and Schultz as perfectionist Marcy who makes a critical decision to control her own life.
Ariana D. Brooks & ensemble. Courtesy of Zah Rosing. Used with permission.
As far as the three audience members who were chosen to join the cast, one is left to wonder how and why they were chosen and whether any of them had prior stage experience. It appeared that at leasty the two men who participated might have had some, based on their improv abilities. The lone female, though a good sport, was a fish out of water. In the end, however, the audience participation was all good-natured fun.
Music director and pianist Joshua Burnette led a top-notch band of four seasoned musicians placed on the stage of the gym that the show is set in and where they were situated behind a curtain that opened during numbers sung by the characters. All the performers, possessing strong voices, displayed vitality and showmanship as they interpreted Finn’s animated score and clever lyrics. Standing out for outstanding vocals was Griffith as ex con Mitch Mahoney. who performs his community service with the Bee, and hands out juice boxes to losing students.
The previously mentioned gym in the fictious Putnam Valley Middle School where the Bee is held, was beautifully crafted and the show’s slick lighting, sound, set and costumes all reflected a high caliber that one expects from IRT productions that are always Broadway quality.
Though billed as a comedy, “The 25 Annual Putnam County Spelling” also has its moments of poignancy but mostly it is pure entertainment, not to mention, escapism at its finest. IRT has another hilarious hit musical on its hands. IRT artistic director Ben Hanna’s strategy to attract new audiences by returning musicals to the theater’s programming, appears to be working.
For tickets and information about “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” visit irtlive.com
