Andrew Melendez

Listening Assignment #6 of 12
The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee
The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is a musical comedy with
music and lyrics by William Finn, whose previous work Falsettos won the
1992 Tony Awards for Best Book of a Musical and Best Original Score. The
book was written by Rachel Sheinkin, now a playwriting lecturer at the Yale
School of Drama, with material adapted from the improvisational play C-R-EP-U-S-C-U-L-E by Rebecca Feldman. Spelling Bee centers around six young
spellers and the eccentric grown-ups that run the Putnam Valley Middle
School spelling bee. After a year of workshops at the Barrington Stage
Company in Massachusetts, Spelling Bee moved to the off-Broadway Second
Stage Theatre to critical and box office success. The musical made its
Broadway premiere at the Circle in the Square Theatre in 2005 and ran for
more than 1300 performances over three years. Minor characters in the
show are usually doubled by the actors playing the major characters, and
three or four audience members are invited on stage every night to
participate as spellers during the bee.
Much of the musicals appeal comes from its treatment of adolescent
anxiety and the uncomfortable transition into adulthood. As the show
progresses, it becomes clear that even the adults share the same neuroses
with the young spellers, and that its not quite as easy to grow up as it might
seem. Its a funny and touching show, if irreverent at times, like when Jesus
shows up at the request of one of the spellers, or when Chip runs through the

aisles selling snacks and singing about the erection that he blames for
making him the first speller to be eliminated from the bee. The score is full
and complex and perfectly communicates the fears and joys of all the
characters. Pandemonium is one of my favorite songs on the album
because Jose Llana as Chip on the Broadway cast recording gets a pretty
exciting riff vocal line at the end that literally gave me chills, and I wouldnt
mind taking it on myself (and hopefully do a better job than I did in Spring
Awakening). The I Love You Song is a darker (but no less whimsical) point
of the show: Olive imagines, through a haze of East Indian strings and bells,
that her parents are at the bee supporting her. She reveals the pressure that
their absence puts on her and cries out to them in a beautiful ballad that
communicates an incredible depth of aching and longing. One of the chief
strengths of the score is its ability to balance its more bawdy moments with
tender moments like this one that create the understanding that the
complexity of emotion is not lost on children.
James Lapine, a frequent collaborator to both Finn and Stephen
Sondheim, directed Putnam County Spelling Bee in its off-Broadway and
Broadway premiere, as well as in San Francisco and Chicago. The musical
was an enormous success: in 2005, the off-Broadway production won three
Drama Desk Awards, and the Broadway production won two Tony Awards for
Best Book of a Musical and Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a
Musical (Dan Fogler as William Barfe). Charles Isherwood of The New York
Times praised the musical as refreshingly handcrafted, applauding Lapines

sharpening of Finns wistful score and Sheinkins tongue-in-cheek book.

Because of the nature of the improvised source material, Spelling Bee takes
advantage of numerous opportunities to ad-lib and enhance audience
interaction, which Isherwood reflects on with relief and amusement: the
recruitment of audience volunteers of all ages to join in the competition still
inspires delighted chuckles and palpable suspense, not squirms of irritation.
A Broadway cast album was released in May 2005 and was nominated for a
Grammy Award in 2006.

Sources
"'Bee' Spells Farewell January 20, 2008." Broadway World News Desk, 7 Nov.
2007. Web.
Farewell-

<http://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Bee-SpellsJanuary-20-2008-20071107>.

Charles Isherwood. "The Will to Win Spelled Out With a Lisp." The New York
Times. N.p., 8

Feb. 2005. Web.

<http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/08/theater/reviews/the-will-

to-

win-spelled-out-with-a-lisp.html>.
Charles Isherwood. "Six Misfits Test Wits on Bigger Platform." The New York
Times. N.p., 3

May 2005. Web.

<http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/03/theater/reviews/sixwits-on-bigger-platform.html?_r=0>.

misfits-test-

Finn, William. (2005.) The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee
Broadway Cast
Records.

Recording [Spotify]. New York, NY: Ghostlight