The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

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The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee puts six anxious adolescents on a school stage and lets them spell for their lives. Each speller arrives with a private reason for needing to win. The microphone is unforgiving, the words get harder, and every elimination is marked by a comfort counsellor handing out a juice box. Between rounds the bee pauses for the spellers themselves: a girl whose parents have not turned up, a boy who spells with his foot, a child drilled into over-achievement, another who has never been told he is clever. Three adults preside over the contest, each nursing a disappointment of their own, and none of them entirely equipped for the children in front of them. William Finn wrote the music and lyrics and Rachel Sheinkin the book, developing the show from an improvised play conceived by Rebecca Feldman. It reached the stage in 2005 and has since been produced widely by professional companies, colleges and schools, helped by a small cast and modest staging demands. Volunteers from the audience are brought into the competition, so part of every performance is genuinely unscripted and the pronouncer works his definitions around whoever turns up. The comedy is quick and affectionate rather than mocking, and the songs turn small humiliations, a mispronounced word or an absent parent, into something unexpectedly tender. It suits audiences who enjoy ensemble comedy with real feeling underneath, and anyone who remembers being twelve and desperate to be good at something. The laughs come often, and the last few minutes are quieter than expected.