After running for three years in New York City, the musical The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee plays its final Broadway performance today, Sunday, January 20, 2008 at Circle
in the Square Theatre (West 50th
St., between Broadway and 8th). The award-winning musical played 1,136 performances and 21 previews on Broadway.
The 25th Annual Putnam
County Spelling Bee opened on Broadway on May 2, 2005, following a
critically acclaimed, sold-out off-Broadway run at Second Stage Theatre, where
it began performances on January 11, 2005 and officially opened on February 7,
2005. The musical had its world
premiere production at Barrington Stage Company in July 2004. Winner of Two Tony Awards (Best Book of a
Musical and Best Featured Actor in a Musical for Dan Fogler), The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee
became the first Broadway musical of the 2004-05 season to recoup its
investment, doing so in just 18 weeks, an amazingly short time for a Broadway
musical to earn back its capitalization.
A successful national tour of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is currently playing
around the country, most recently at the National Theater in Washington, D.C.
(Peter Marks of The Washington Post called the production "laugh-out-loud
funny"). The musical has enjoyed
lengthy sit-down productions in Chicago, San Francisco, and Boston,
and has been produced internationally in Melbourne and Sydney.
A hilariously hip musical comedy, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee features six young
people in the throes of puberty, overseen by grown-ups who barely managed to
escape childhood themselves, learning that winning isn't everything and that
losing doesn't necessarily make you a loser.
At each performance, four audience volunteers are invited
onstage to participate in the Bee. The New York production has welcomed over 4,500 audience volunteers, almost all appearing
on a Broadway stage for the first time. Among the volunteer spellers were Julie
Andrews, Lea Salonga, Raul Esparza, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Stephen Graham,
Jeffrey Toobin, Curtis Sliwa, National Spelling Bee Champ Kelly Close and Al
Sharpton (in his infamous cameo on the 2005 Tony Awards).
The 25th Annual Putnam
County Spelling Bee has music and lyrics by William Finn, book by Rachel
Sheinkin, choreography by Dan Knechtges, conceived by Rebecca Feldman and
directed by James Lapine.
The 25th Annual Putnam
County Spelling Bee currently stars Aaron J. Albano as Chip Tolentino,
Stanley Bahorek as Leaf Coneybear, Jenni Barber as Olive Ostrovsky, Jared
Gertner as William Barfee, James Monroe Iglehart as comfort counselor Mitch
Mahoney, Sara Inbar as Logainne Schwartzandgrubinneirre, Greta Lee as Marcy
Park, Daniel Pearce as Vice Principal Douglas Panch, and Jennifer Simard as
Rona Lisa Perretti. For more information, please visit www.spellingbeethemusical.com.
