Find out why The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is a cult American musical with a huge buzz about it.
The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee
Music and Lyrics by William Finn
Book by Rachel Sheinkin
Directed by Tom Cooper
27 February 2025
The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee review, RCS 2025 ⭐⭐⭐⭐
2005 Broadway musical The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is one that is little known and seldom performed in the UK. Perhaps because Spelling Bee's are an inherently American tradition. Whatever the reason, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is a musical that could be set for world domination in the near future with Disney rumoured to be producing a film adaptation.
With only a passing knowledge of the musical comedy myself, I sat down to enjoy the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland's production of William Finn and Rachel's Sheinkin offbeat musical about kids battling it out at a spelling competition.
What is The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee about?
A group of middle-school children have gathered in a gym hall somewhere in middle America to take part in a high-stakes county spelling competition. One-by-one, these exceptional kids are asked to spell increasingly tricky words until only the victor remains. Full of funny, heartfelt songs and unforgettable characters The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee gives the rest of the world an insight into this bizarre American custom. It's delightful.
A spelling bee is certainly a niche subject for musical, but Rachel Sheinkin's book won the Tony Award for 'Best Book of Musical' when the Broadway production premiered in 2005. At RCS the story is brought to life by eighteen actor-musicians from third year of the BA Musical Theatre course. As usual, the multi-skilled superstars from the Conservatoire elevate the characters and score to a whole new level and make this production their own unique creation.
The Alexander Gibson Opera Studio at RCS has been transformed by the BA Production and Design and BA Production and Technology Management students into a small-town american school gym hall complete with basketball hoops, posters the kids have drawn and brightly coloured chairs for the contestants to sit on. The excellent themining here is inventive, imaginative and authentic. You'd never believe an opera singer had ever set foot in this "gym".
As the audience for the spelling bee are shown to their seats in the gym hall they are greeted by spelling bee moderator (and third Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee winner) Rona Peretti (Grace Deveney), and Vice Principal Douglas Panch (Jack Howells-Davies).
Unusually for a musical, (and somewhat terrifying, depending on your stance) three audience members are invited to join the children on stage and participate in the spelling bee. I politely but strongly declined; no thank you! However this unexpected aspect of the show does work brilliantly. It adds interest for the already engaged audience as they root for their compatriots to succeed, and it allows the cast room for added improvisation.
As each of the children (and the three participating audience members) are individually called up to centre stage to spell a word, they are introduced by Perretti and Panch who provide interesting and often amusing anecdotes about the contenders upbringing and their journey to the county spelling championships. This is where the improvisation comes in. It's such an unusual quirk for a musical, but in the hands of a talent company and director as we have here, it's hugely successful.
Who are the Competitors in the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee?
The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is so much better than it has any right to be. I can imagine in lesser productions that the story could become repetitive. Contestant after contestant stands centre stage, asks for a word, asks for a definition and for it to be used in a sentence, and then they attempt to spell it. But the cast, direction and musicality in this production are fantastic.
The RCS company embody the 9-12 year-old-kids with so much humour and heart, it's genuinely fascinating to watch. Each of the six main contenders has a backstory and a song, and we soon learn there is much more at stake than just a silly spelling competition. These kids and their parents take this thing very seriously! And they are all dealing with the challenges of not just growing up, but of being extraordinarily clever too.
Chip Tolentino (David Coppini) is the defending spelling bee champion and has returned to defend his title, but he may have discovered girls at just the wrong time 'My Unfortunate Erection.' Free spirit Leaf Coneybear (Kirsty Morrison) is easy-going and not at all competitive; and she keeps being given south American rodent names to spell 'I'm Not That Smart.' Ambitious William Barfee (Sheridan Townsley) has a famously unusual way of spelling out his words 'Magic Foot', and Marcy Park (Carley Duncan) is a supersmart, sporty, serious overachiever who takes offense at being labelled all-business, 'I Speak Six Languages.'
Sweet and shy Olive Ostrovsky (Emma May Crone) is keen to save a seat in the audience for her father who is running late 'The I Love You Song' and has brought her only friend, the dictionary, along to the bee 'My Friend, The Dictionary.' The youngest competitor is Logainne SchwartzandGrubenierre (Shoshana Ezequiel) who only wants to impress her gay dads. They are all adorable and bring these cute but curiously complex characters to life beautifully.
The "adults" too are superb with Grace Deveney's Rona Peretti and Matty J's Mitch Manuka Mahoney stunning in their roles. In RCS's Bee, Mahoney is a drag queen who consoles each of the losing competitors with a hug and a juice box as they are eliminated from the competition. A comforting presence throughout, his voice soars during "The Prayer of the Comfort Counsellor."
The company who are not playing the six main kids or adults make up the ensemble cast playing other competitors, parents, siblings and a variety of minor roles. All of them are equally as impressive. Together this company, with their assured and energetic performances, manage to create a warm and welcoming environment that puts the audience at ease right from the start.
The score is one of the weaker parts of this musical. The songs are all lovely, interesting, entertaining at the time - and magnificently performed in this production - but The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee doesn't have any big standout show-stopping songs to rival the musical theatre greats.
One astonishing characteristic of this RCS production of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is that the cast not only act, sing, help the volunteer audiences members with their marks and lines, improvise and dance, but they play a variety of musical instruments too. There is so much going on! RCS really like to challenge their musical theatre students. And much like Urinetown from last years BAMT cohort, the skill and talent on show is frankly unbelievable. I genuinely don't know how they do it. From drums to keyboard, guitars and trumpets, I think I even saw a harp at one point - this cast squeeze everything in to their performance and deliver beautiful orchestrations as well as their lines.
I'm genuinely fascinated to see what Disney do with The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. If the RCS production is anything to go by, it's set to be a roaring success.
🐝 The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee played at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland from date to date 2025
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