Theatre. T-h-e-a-t-r-e. Theatre.
Whether or not you can spell it, or prefer the alternate Americanized t-h-e-a-t-e-r, the SJU Theatre Company requests your presence this weekend at “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” its spring musical.
“The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” conceived by Rebecca Feldman and based on the book of the same name by Rachel Sheinkin, centers on a fictional spelling bee at Putnam Valley Middle School.
The musical follows three adult moderators and six middle schooler contestants competing in the bee. It’s not just a show about a spelling game, though. The second act features the back stories and quirks of some of the characters, who have overbearing dads, confidence issues and health problems.
Musical numbers include “The Spelling Rules/My Favorite Moment of the Bee,” “My Friend the Dictionary” and “I’m Not That Smart.”
Anastasia Korbal ’22 plays Olive Ostrovsky, one of the bee’s contestants. As the least quirky contestant, Olive is considered to be rather normal and shy in comparison to the other characters. However, as the show goes on, she becomes more confident.
Korbal said the musical will act as a short, fun outlet for the St. Joe’s community.
“It’s a comedy, which I feel like we all need, especially right now, when everything’s kind of going crazy,” Korbal said.
Renee Dobson, M.F.A., associate director of performing arts and artistic director of Bluett Theatre, said she chose the show in part because it is a contemporary musical and in part because it has a small cast and a small band.
“I wanted to make sure that we just kept the cast a little bit more intimate because we have a lot of ups and downs with the pandemic, and we wanted to keep it as tight and small as possible,” Dobson said.
The musical also features interaction between the actors and audience volunteers. Although guided by a written script, the cast still had to rehearse a variety of takes to account for those volunteers, Dobson said.
“Given the situation in the musical, [the actors] have to be relatively flexible,” Dobson said, “If you’re interacting with a member of the audience, each night is a different person, and then you may have to deal with different scripted elements.”
Ava Smith ’25 plays Marcy Park, another bee contestant known for being a perfectionist and an overachiever.
Smith said the audience’s participation adds to the musical’s fun and lively atmosphere.
“It’s really fun in general and engaging [because] there’s a lot of audience participation, like people being pulled on stage and candy being thrown to the audience,” Smith said. “So there’s a lot of really cool and engaging things going on.”
Korbal said she hopes the musical will give its audience some time to escape from the real world.
“My hope is just to give people a space to escape, to hopefully smile, have a good laugh and just leave feeling a little bit better than when they first came into the theater,” Korbal said.
Dobson said the show has been fun for her and the cast, too.
“Many times we work on serious pieces,” Dobson said. “Even in musicals, there’s a lot of serious moments, and it’s been a great outlet in rehearsal, to just be able to laugh and for the students to be able to be as silly as they need to be because they’re playing younger kids. There’s a lot of joy in being able to just let go, and, even in directing it, it’s been a very upbeat process.”
The musical runs April 21, 22 and 23 at 8 p.m. and April 24 at 2 p.m. Tickets are $10 and can be purchased in advance via Venmo or the day of by cash only.
