THEATRE + COMEDY

The Country Playhouse (voted through Houston Community Newspapers as Best Community Theatre of 2010) presents The Twenty-Fifth Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, a one-act musical comedy conceived by Rebecca Feldman with music and lyrics by William Finn, book by Rachel Sheinkin and additional material by Jay Reiss. The show centers round a fictional spelling bee set in a geographically ambiguous Putnam Valley Middle School. It runs on the Cerwinske Stage from February 25 to March 12, 2011 and O’Dell Hutchison directs.

The Twenty-Fifth Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is a hilarious tale of overachievers' angst chronicling the experience of a group of adolescents vying for the spelling championship of a lifetime. The show's Tony Award winning creative team has created the unlikeliest of hit musicals about the unlikeliest of heroes: a quirky yet charming cast of six young people in the throes of puberty, for whom a spelling bee is the one place where they can stand out and fit in at the same time. These youngsters, overseen by grown-ups who barely managed to escape childhood themselves, learn that winning isn't everything and that losing doesn't necessarily make you a loser.

In a high school gym Rona Lisa Peretti finalizes the preparations for the annual county spelling bee, reminiscing about her own spelling bee victory many years before. The current crop of spelling contenders include last year's champ Chip, Schwarzy, Coneybear, Barfee, Marcy and Olive who are joined by the four volunteers from the audience Rona invites to take part in the competition (these are real audience members who have been selected through an interview process before the show).

The result is a warm, funny, heart-wrenching and surprising production, full of wonderful music and snappy dialogue!

Pictured below:

Sitting - Back row R to L: Marco Camacho as Chip Tolentino, Monica Passley as Logainne SchwartzandGrubenniere, Chris Patton as Leaf Coneybear. Front Row R to L: Tamara Siler (standing) as Mitch Mahoney, Richard Solis as William Barfee, Emerald Harmon as Marcy Park, Erin Stallings as Olive Ostrovsky, Rachel Landon (standing) as Rona Lisa Peretti, Kyle C. Ezer (standing) as Douglas Panch

Jumping - R to L: Richard Solis as William Barfee, Emerald Harmon as Marcy Park, Marco Camacho as Chip Tolentino, Monica Passley as Logainne SchwartzandGrubenniere, Chris Patton as Leaf Coneybear, Erin Stallings as Olive Ostrovsky