Barrington Announces Casting for 'Spelling Bee'

Barrington Stage Company – under the artistic direction of Julianne Boyd – has announced casting for THE 25th ANNUAL PUTNAM COUNTY SPELLING BEE and PRIVATE LIVES as well as and related information on its 2008 line-up of summer productions.
 
The Mainstage season will begin with the 'homecoming' production of the Tony-winning musical, THE 25th ANNUAL PUTNAM COUNTY SPELLING BEE by Rachel Sheinkin and William Finn, June 11-July 12. Directed by Jeremy Dobrish, with choreography by Dan Knechtges and music direction by Brian Usifer, the cast features Emy Baysic, Miguel Cervantes, Hannah Del Monte, Molly Ephraim, Demond Green (BSC's "Funked Up Fairy Tales"), Clifton Guterman, Michael Mastro ("Side Man"), Eric Peterson, and Sally Wilfert (BSC's "Elegies").  Barrington Stage Company's "Spelling Bee" will be a co-production with North Shore Music Theatre (Beverly, MA), where it will run from August 12-31.
 
Gretchen Egolf (BSC's "A Picasso") will play Amanda and be joined by Rebecca Brooksher ("Dying City") as Sibyl and Tandy Cronyn (BSC's "Earnest" and "Ring 'Round the Moon") as Louise in Noel Coward's PRIVATE LIVES, which is scheduled to run Aug. 10 - 26.   They w ill join the already announced Christopher Innvar as Elyot and Mark H. Dold as Victor.  Julianne Boyd directs.
 
Barry Edelstein will stage Richard Greenberg's THE VIOLET HOUR on the Mainstage July 16-27.   Edelstein is an acclaimed stage director who served as Artistic Director of New York's Classic Stage Company for five seasons.  He previously directed four productions at WTF – notably "All My Sons" and "As You Like It."
 
Barrington Stage Company will present a free staged reading of WATT!?!, a new musical about James Watt, U.S. Secretary of the Interior under Ronald Reagan, written by David Javerbaum, five-time Emmy Award winner for "The Daily Show" and the Tony-nominated composer of the Broadway musical "Cry-Baby" and Brendan Milburn of GrooveLily.   Directed by Jonathan Bernstein with a cast that includes Martin Moran as James Watt ("The Tricky Part" and "Spamalot"), Mary Birdsong (TV's RENO 911, Martin Short's "Fame Becomes Me" and the new film Made of Honor), Pearl Sun (Dr. Seuss' "How the Grinch Stole Christmas"), Sarah Saltzberg (original cast of "Spelling Bee"), Benjamin Howes [title of show], John Jellison ("Caroline, or Change") and John Ellison Conlee ("The Full Monty").  Performances are Saturday, May 24 at 4pm and Sunday, May 25 at 7pm at the new 110-seat theater in the VFW Hall (36 Linden Street).
 
Complete casting for the BSC season will be announced in the coming weeks.
 
BSC's Box Office is currently selling flex-passes, musical theatre lab passes and single tickets at 413-236-8888.  For further information visit BSC's new website www.barringtonstageco.org.