Review of 'The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee'

As you have already read here on , the senior members of Naugatuck Teen Theatre wanted to launch a summer production “from scratch” all by themselves but they needed a venue. They teamed up with the in order to present The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee and it was clearly a win-win.  Patrons who may had never set foot into the old train station came out to see the show and got a taste of what can be seen inside this wonderful old building. Hopefully, many will return to the museum. The exhibits that were not removed were carefully protected with velvet ropes and the simple set consisted of a desk, folding chairs, one microphone and a large sign.  Before the show began, the Student Advisor Dan Checovetes chose four teenaged audience members to round out the cast (as was done on Broadway) and gave them only a few stage directions. The real members of the cast did an amazing job of keeping them up to speed.

What a cast this was! As the nine of them sang their first number together, all I could think was that they sounded as polished as a choir.  Every one of them had a voice that could fill the high ceiling without a microphone and over the piano at the side of the stage area expertly played by Norris Person. No page turner for this young man, but he missed nothing and even provided the sound of a cell phone when needed. Each and every member of the cast was a strong actor as well, and those eliminated in the Bee early returned to play other parts!

These students never broke character, not even during (the added) intermission when they interacted with the audience and expertly incorporated a passing train into the show. A pat on the back goes to Director Curtis Dunn for preparing the cast for just about anything. Dunn also appeared as Leaf Coneybear and one of speller Logainne SchwartzandGrubenierre’s (you know where this is going) dads, and was a hoot in both roles. Colleen Gunning, in the role of Bee organizer Rona Lisa Peretti, seemed older than her years but also had a Lea Michelle quality about her. She also served as musical director. Tessa Newell was adorable in the role of speller Olive Ostrovsky and Laura Shannon probably had the best costume and speech impediment in the Logainne role. However, Zach Carter had his own speech and health issues in the role of William Barfee (accent of the last syllable) and he carried them off with aplomb.

The role of Boy Scout and reigning Bee champion Chip Tolentino was played to the hilt by Austin Carnes and I will just say that he has another cameo role. Alyssa Bianca (Lead Costumer) was excellent as speller Marcy Park, the classic overachiever, and Daniel Dressel was convincing as the Vice Principal on the edge. He also had lots of fun with using the words in a sentence for the spellers.  Jeffrey O’Brien played the role of Mitch Mahoney (a guy with a past) and two other characters and he wins the prize for the most costume changes. He was excellent in all three.

Spelling Bee is an extremely funny, topical, and enjoyable show. I knew that it had been on Broadway and I think I might have seen one song on the Tony Awards, but it turned out to be much more than I expected. While the songs were not especially memorable, they carried the show along to a fun conclusion. Don’t leave before the epilogue.

This was my first experience with Teen Theatre and I must say that I was very impressed. If this is what they can pull off by themselves, I can only imagine the quality of the regular fall and spring productions. I will definitely be checking them out. Spelling Bee closes Sunday, August 21 at 8 p.m.