{"data":{"id":"c9782915-983d-4cc9-8002-7c43311e0944","originKind":"SYNDICATED","title":"Review: Citadel's 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee a summer crowd-pleaser","summary":"The gymnasium in a junior high school — seemingly an empty vessel for bleachers, sports pennants and out-of-tune upright pianos — is also a room full of dreams. It is where school dances, concert band romances and dodge ball take place, where children morph into teens, riding a wave of hope, fear and wonder that marks the move from adolescent to young adult.\n\nAt Putnam Valley Middle School, the gym also the site of the 25th-annual Putnam County spelling bee, where a handful of ambitious youngsters compete for a prize of a $200 savings bond. The situation is classic, high-stakes Americana; the children, who have competed on an arduous ladder in hopes of making national finals in Washington, D.C, are edgy and excited at the same time.\n\nThe audience feels their angst. By choosing The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee as its summer production, the Citadel dives directly into sweaty memories held by virtually anyone who ever went to junior high in or outside of the United States. Audience members are primed to feel for the characters and to pick one to root for, either because they were once word nerds themselves, or knew someone just like the student stifled by pressure-cooker parents, or the kid with the inhaler.\n\nAs the musical opens, moderator Rona Lisa Peretti (Jill Agoposowicz, excellent pipes) bustles in to set up for the spelling bee. A successful real estate agent with a bright orange business suit to prove it, Rona Lisa is a former spelling bee champion. She tells us all about it in the show’s opening number, which also introduces the six finalists — all adolescents played by adults. Logainne Schwartzandgrubenniere (Rain Matkin in a charming, lisp-inflected turn) has two dads and is a big supporter of bike lanes. William Barfée (Farren Timoteo, pulling out all the stops) comes across as a bit of a stick, but you might be the same if you had a killer nut allergy. An underdog emerges in Olive Ostrovsky (Christina Nguyen, sympathetically earnest), who took the bus to the competition and doesn’t have the $25 entry fee. She’s saving a seat for her father, who will try to get there after work. Her mother is at a spiritual retreat in India.\n\nBased on an improvisational play created by Rebecca Feldman, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is a wildly popular musical that has played around the world since its stellar debut off-Broadway in 2005. Later that same year the show went to the Great White Way, where it ran for three years, garnering multiple Tony nominations, two Tony awards and a Grammy nomination. It was revived on Broadway in 2025 to rave reviews.\n\nThere are several ingredients in the secret sauce for this highly entertaining production, directed by the Citadel’s associate artistic director, Mieko Ouchi (all nine cast members, by the way, hail from Edmonton). For one thing, adults dressed as kids look funny and that makes us laugh. The pacing is brisk, with toe-tapping tunes (music and lyrics by William Finn) that seamlessly deliver exposition (book by Rachel Sheinken with additional material by Jay Reiss).\n\nWhile the children could be written as clichés, such as the Boy Scout in knee socks and the girl who speaks six languages, each exudes idiosyncratic quirks that make them come alive. Michael Watt reveals his comical character, Leaf Coneybear, by engaging his whole body, from his curly mop to his fingertips. His family, including siblings Landscape and Raisin, have told him he’s not that smart. But under pressure, he enters a kind of trance and pulls the winning letters, in the right order, from his mind as if from a deep, spiritual well. He amazes himself, and it’s a treat to watch.\n\nAn engaging element of the show is the addition of several volunteer participants preselected from the audience to compete in the spelling bee, adding a delightful dash of much-needed narrative tension to the first act. (You never know about audience volunteers. Some are frighteningly invigorated by the experience.) On the preview night that I attended, the audience volunteers were well-behaved and one turned out to be a particularly good speller, lasting longer than you might expect in the contest.\n\nOther highlights include the official word pronouncer, vice principal Doug Panch. Cody Porter exhibits excellent comic timing in this role; some of the show’s funniest bits come when contestants ask Panch to use the spelling word in a sentence. Sheldon Elter appears as Mitch Mahoney, who walks eliminated candidates off the stage with a juice box and a kind squeeze of the shoulder. That Mitch is an ex-con doing community service hours as a “comfort counsellor” is a juxtaposition that draws numerous laughs.\n\nThe 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is the very definition of a crowd-pleaser, a generous splash of sunshine in a rainy summer, a joyful burst of laughter. E-N-J-O-Y.\n\nThe 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee Music and lyrics by William Finn, book by Rachel Sheinken, conceived by Rebecca Feldman with additional material by Jay Reiss\n\nTheatre: The Citadel\n\nDirector: Mieko Ouchi\n\nWhere: The Citadel’s Shoctor Theatre, 9828 101 A Ave.\n\nWhen: Until Aug. 2\n\nTickets: From $40 through citadeltheatre.com or by calling the box office at 780-425-1820.\n\nRelated Concert review: Hypnotic Angine de Poitrine exceeds hype at Fan Park\n\nHip guitarist Paul Langlois opens up, brings new Kingston band to Edmonton's Rockin' Thunder\n\nBookmark our website and support our journalism: Don’t miss the news you need to know — add EdmontonJournal.com and EdmontonSun.com to your bookmarks and sign up for our newsletters here.\n\nYou can also support our journalism by becoming a digital subscriber. Subscribers gain unlimited access to The Edmonton Journal, Edmonton Sun, National Post and 13 other Canadian news sites. Support us by subscribing today: The Edmonton Journal | The Edmonton Sun.","url":"https://edmontonjournal.com/entertainment/review-citadel-theatre-putnam-county-spelling-bee","imageUrl":"https://smartcdn.gprod.postmedia.digital/edmontonjournal/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/citadel-25th-putnam-county-spelling-bee-2982_304183799.jpg","publishedAt":"2026-07-10T11:00:39.000Z","sourceLabel":"Edmonton Journal Music","tags":["Entertainment","Local Arts","Theatre"],"authorName":"Liane Faulder","contentHtml":"\"The

The gymnasium in a junior high school — seemingly an empty vessel for bleachers, sports pennants and out-of-tune upright pianos — is also a room full of dreams. It is where school dances, concert band romances and dodge ball take place, where children morph into teens, riding a wave of hope, fear and wonder that marks the move from adolescent to young adult.

At Putnam Valley Middle School, the gym also the site of the 25th-annual Putnam County spelling bee, where a handful of ambitious youngsters compete for a prize of a $200 savings bond. The situation is classic, high-stakes Americana; the children, who have competed on an arduous ladder in hopes of making national finals in Washington, D.C, are edgy and excited at the same time.

The audience feels their angst. By choosing The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee as its summer production, the Citadel dives directly into sweaty memories held by virtually anyone who ever went to junior high in or outside of the United States. Audience members are primed to feel for the characters and to pick one to root for, either because they were once word nerds themselves, or knew someone just like the student stifled by pressure-cooker parents, or the kid with the inhaler.

As the musical opens, moderator Rona Lisa Peretti (Jill Agoposowicz, excellent pipes) bustles in to set up for the spelling bee. A successful real estate agent with a bright orange business suit to prove it, Rona Lisa is a former spelling bee champion. She tells us all about it in the show’s opening number, which also introduces the six finalists — all adolescents played by adults. Logainne Schwartzandgrubenniere (Rain Matkin in a charming, lisp-inflected turn) has two dads and is a big supporter of bike lanes. William Barfée (Farren Timoteo, pulling out all the stops) comes across as a bit of a stick, but you might be the same if you had a killer nut allergy. An underdog emerges in Olive Ostrovsky (Christina Nguyen, sympathetically earnest), who took the bus to the competition and doesn’t have the $25 entry fee. She’s saving a seat for her father, who will try to get there after work. Her mother is at a spiritual retreat in India.

\"

Based on an improvisational play created by Rebecca Feldman, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is a wildly popular musical that has played around the world since its stellar debut off-Broadway in 2005. Later that same year the show went to the Great White Way, where it ran for three years, garnering multiple Tony nominations, two Tony awards and a Grammy nomination. It was revived on Broadway in 2025 to rave reviews.

There are several ingredients in the secret sauce for this highly entertaining production, directed by the Citadel’s associate artistic director, Mieko Ouchi (all nine cast members, by the way, hail from Edmonton). For one thing, adults dressed as kids look funny and that makes us laugh. The pacing is brisk, with toe-tapping tunes (music and lyrics by William Finn) that seamlessly deliver exposition (book by Rachel Sheinken with additional material by Jay Reiss).

While the children could be written as clichés, such as the Boy Scout in knee socks and the girl who speaks six languages, each exudes idiosyncratic quirks that make them come alive. Michael Watt reveals his comical character, Leaf Coneybear, by engaging his whole body, from his curly mop to his fingertips. His family, including siblings Landscape and Raisin, have told him he’s not that smart. But under pressure, he enters a kind of trance and pulls the winning letters, in the right order, from his mind as if from a deep, spiritual well. He amazes himself, and it’s a treat to watch.

An engaging element of the show is the addition of several volunteer participants preselected from the audience to compete in the spelling bee, adding a delightful dash of much-needed narrative tension to the first act. (You never know about audience volunteers. Some are frighteningly invigorated by the experience.) On the preview night that I attended, the audience volunteers were well-behaved and one turned out to be a particularly good speller, lasting longer than you might expect in the contest.

Other highlights include the official word pronouncer, vice principal Doug Panch. Cody Porter exhibits excellent comic timing in this role; some of the show’s funniest bits come when contestants ask Panch to use the spelling word in a sentence. Sheldon Elter appears as Mitch Mahoney, who walks eliminated candidates off the stage with a juice box and a kind squeeze of the shoulder. That Mitch is an ex-con doing community service hours as a “comfort counsellor” is a juxtaposition that draws numerous laughs.

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is the very definition of a crowd-pleaser, a generous splash of sunshine in a rainy summer, a joyful burst of laughter. E-N-J-O-Y.

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

Music and lyrics by William Finn, book by Rachel Sheinken, conceived by Rebecca Feldman with additional material by Jay Reiss

Theatre: The Citadel

Director: Mieko Ouchi

Where: The Citadel’s Shoctor Theatre, 9828 101 A Ave.

When: Until Aug. 2

Tickets: From $40 through citadeltheatre.com or by calling the box office at 780-425-1820.

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