The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee information
Musical by William Finn and Rachel Sheinkin
The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee
Original Cast Recording
Music
William Finn
Lyrics
William Finn
Book
Rachel Sheinkin
Basis
C-R-E-P-U-S-C-U-L-E by Rebecca Feldman
Productions
2004 Workshop
2005 Off-Broadway
2005 Broadway
2006 Melbourne
2007 US Tour
2007 Seoul
2010 Hong Kong
2011 West End
2012 Oslo
2012 Jerusalem
2013 Mexico City
2017 Tel Aviv
Awards
Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical
Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Book of a Musical
Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Musical
Helpmann Award for Best Musical
The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is a musical comedy with music and lyrics by William Finn, with a book written by Rachel Sheinkin, conceived by Rebecca Feldman with additional material by Jay Reiss. The show centers on a fictional spelling bee set in a geographically ambiguous Putnam Valley Middle School. Six quirky adolescents compete in the Bee, run by three equally quirky grown-ups.
The 2005 Broadway production, directed by James Lapine and produced by David Stone, James L. Nederlander, Barbara Whitman, Patrick Catullo, Barrington Stage Company and Second Stage Theater, earned good reviews and box-office success and was nominated for six Tony Awards, winning two, including Best Book. The show has spawned various other productions in the United States, and other countries.
An unusual aspect of the show is that four real audience members are invited on stage to compete in the spelling bee alongside the six young characters. During the 2005 Tony Awards, former presidential candidate Al Sharpton competed. Another amusing aspect of the show is that the official pronouncer, usually an improv comedian, provides ridiculous usage-in-a-sentence examples when asked to use words in a sentence. At some shows, adult-only audiences (over age 16) are invited for "Parent-Teacher Conferences" also known as "adult night at the Bee". These performances are peppered with sexual references and profanity inspired by R-rated ad-libs made during rehearsals.
The Broadway cast album was released on May 31, 2005, and is available from Ghostlight Records, an imprint of Sh-K-Boom Records. The original Broadway cast recording was nominated for a Grammy Award. In April 2021, a Disney film adaptation was announced to be in the works.
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simply “theSpellingBee” in the United States, is an annualspellingbee held in the United States. Thebee is run on a not-for-profit basis by The E. W...
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