Who will the best speller be? Who will be able to withstand the pressures of competition? Who wants it the most? I’m sure these are among the questions you must be asking yourselves once the play begins. Well, without giving the ending of the story away, I’ll just say that it’s the audience that has the most F-U-N, FUN. 

I thoroughly enjoyed watching this bright, funny and talented cast in Music Theater Works’ brand new production of the Tony Award-Winning musical, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, now being performed in the North Theatre at North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie. The hit musical, conceived by the mind of Rebecca Feldman is superbly executed thanks to its fine direction and choreography by Christopher Pazdernik, Keeley Vasquez who assists in both said areas, and with music direction by Michal McBride. 

The Putnam County Spelling Bee is exactly what you would imagine happens every year when a collection of the nerdiest, most sensitive and intelligent students from the local county schools come together to face their fears on the big stage to take home the first place trophy for best speller. And, to add a little more fun to this particular spelling bee, it also requires a good amount of improvisational participation from audience members who might just be called down to compete with the students. Even if you’ve seen this play before, there will always be new “cast members“ chosen from the crowd that create unpredictable comedy performed on the spot each night making every experience unique.

The musical, while on one hand provides so many humorous moments, also brings to light the very real pressures of student competition. We see the occasional tears and panic attacks while students compete against each other for a small prize (literally a 12” high trophy and $200 that goes toward future education). We see that winning or not can have big consequences at home and/or in their own psyche. But we also see how competition can bring people together and how it can help us learn about ourselves.

Neala Barron who plays the zealous, rule-following spelling bee supervisor (and one-time winner), Rona Lisa Perretti, pairs up with Zach Kunde who takes on the role of Vice Principal Douglas Panch to conduct the competition. Kunde and Barron have great chemistry together and draw lots of laughs from the audience as they provide the words for the students to spell, along with their definitions, use in a sentence and countries of origin. Michael Davis Arnold plays Mitch Mahoney, the assigned “comfort counselor” who is ready with both a hug and a juice box for the next eliminated student. Arnold and Barron both have tremendous singing voices that stun the audience with their solos in this mostly ensemble piece.  

Will Koski, who plays William Barfee’ has stand-out comic and physical timing comedy as his character finds it necessary to spell out each word with his “magic foot” on the floor. Jamie Dillon Grossman is terrific in her role as the adorable, super intelligent, activist, future Congress-bound Logainne Schwartzandgrubeniere, who is under a tremendous amount of pressure to win because her dads “hate losers”. 

Mai Hartwich is a perfect fit as Marcy Park, the student who is capable of speaking “six languages” but is under a great deal of inner pressure to be perfect in everything she does, which includes winning every spelling bee she enters. Hartwich has a great aha moment during the song “Marcy’s Epiphany,” where Marcy realizes that by deliberately spelling a word wrong and losing the spelling bee on purpose, she’s, in many ways, actually taking back her own power so she relax, have fun and return to pursuing what she really wants to wants to do with her life. 

This is a production where truly the entire cast delivers. Joe Lewis is well cast as cape-wearing Leaf Coneybear while Brandon Acosta tackles his role as Chip Tolentino and shines in his performance of “Chip’s Lament,” a whimsical number about how he was distracted by his “unfortunate erection”. Rachel Guth is a pleasure to watch as she plays the sweet and anxious Olive Ostrosky, an only child whose father does not show up for the spelling bee. With her parents on the go so often, Olive has spent most of her lonely childhood at home alone reading the ancient family dictionary because there was no one around to talk to. During the competition she repeatedly looks to row eight to see if her father has arrived to take the seat she reserves for him. Guth has a strong singing voice and especially displays her vocal talent, along with Barron and Arnold, when they team up for the number “The I Love You Song.”      

Director, Christopher Pazdernik does a great job with the pacing and movement of this bright and breezy production. Pazdernik mentions in the program the life lessons that this play should remind us of - to work hard and be proud of ourselves, but that winning isn’t everything! Also, be kind to others and don’t take life so seriously! The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee points out that as children and adults we put way too much pressure on ourselves to be perfect - to WIN first place and to impress ourselves and others in our family, and by doing so miss out on the joy of the moments completely.

I wasn’t a spelling bee kid, but I was a thespian competitor in high school and, as one spelling bee student after another had to be eliminated, I couldn’t help but relive my own memories of intense anxiety arising before, after, and during our national thespian competitions - which had no cash prize at all. That being the case, I really related to Michael Davis Arnold’s “Prayer of the Comfort Counselor,” which he knocks out of the park vocally.

I highly recommend this Music Theater Works production of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee staged in the lovely and intimate North Stage in the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts for audiences of all ages.