THE 25TH ANNUAL PUTNAM COUNTY SPELLING BEE – Music and Lyrics by William Finn; Book by Rachel Sheinkin; Directed by Ben Ranaan; Musical Direction by Trent Hines; Choreography by Claire Hayes. Produced by Phamaly Theatre Company (Presented by Northglenn Arts, 1 East Memorial Parkway, Northglenn) through April 6. Tickets available at 303-365-0005 or phamaly.org.
One of the things you can always count on in a Phamaly production: They will always put a spin on even the most familiar of scripts to change the point of view in charming and creative ways. In this one, many of the usual difficult words thrown at the spellers were exotic diseases or medical conditions accompanied by hilarious definitions and illustrative sentences. Either a disease or an unheard-of Australian rodent.
The whole evening was so much frivolous fun. Even having seen the show multiple times, one never knows what is going to happen with this bunch. They danced out into the auditorium in a mock Superman cape; they threw candy at the audience; they made us laugh and cry. “Laughter through tears – my favorite emotion.”
The so-called adults on the stage were Amy Stewart playing former Bee winner Rona Lisa Peretti. Her beautiful voice set the tone for the evening in her first number, reminiscing about her own time in the winner’s spotlight. Her level head kept the Bee on track – for the most part. Her partner at the table was the dryly humorous Kurt White as Douglas Panch, the stand-in judge. His deadpan delivery of the words, derivatives, definitions, and example sentences was one of the funniest parts of the show. So off-handedly casual and so screamingly funny. While he was reading the words from a list, everything else he said seemed delightfully extemporaneous.
The kids in the Bee each had distinct personalities and were there for their own personal reasons. Cass Dunn plays Logainne Schwartz and Grubenierre, who has two Dads pushing her (a little too hard) to succeed. Eli Schroeder as Barfee who, instead of using his magic foot to spell out a word, used his magic crutch flawlessly. The sullen Marcy Park who only had a smile for the judges was given goth life by Junelle Gabrielle Flores. Markus Rodriguez-Intulaksana did a great job as Chip Tolentino with the unfortunate physical difficulty and a crush on Coneybear’s sister. Sam Barrasso sang her way into everyone’s heart with the “I Love You Song” that illustrated Olive Ostrovsky’s unusual home life. Romy Lopez as Mitch Mahoney, the comfort counselor for the losing contestants, got to hand out juice boxes and hugs with his very own “Prayer.” Special kudos to Luke Fish who was all over the stage with an over-abundance of energy and enthusiasm as Leaf Coneybear. His confused innocence and simple joy at being chosen to be there (the two people who should have been there got sick) was so much fun to watch.
Equally fun to watch was how the spellers started the Bee as competitors but ended up rooting for each other. The event was sprinkled with references to contemporary life with comments about “group chats” and paper straws. One of the guest spellers was caught between a rock and a hard place when asked to spell “family,” not knowing whether to go with the traditional spelling or the Phamaly spelling.
Phamaly shows are always such a treat with their offhand humor and quirky way of looking at the world. This show is closing this weekend. But PLEASE do not miss their summer show of PIPPIN at the Denver Center from August 7th-24th.
A WOW factor of 8.5!!