Whether you’ve seen The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee umpteen times or it’s your first time at the Bee, I guarantee you will fall head over heels for the dazzlingly fresh reinterpretation it’s being given at Santa Ana’s The Wayward Artist.

The 2005 William Finn/Rachel Sheinkin Tony winner (conceived by Rebecca Feldman) imagines a group of elementary/middle schoolers for whom winning is everything, then has a cast of grown-up performers embrace their inner child by bringing them to irresistible life.

There’s last year’s winner Chip Tolentino (Erick Sanchez), plagued by a pesky penile problem that swells up at the most inopportune times.

William Barfée-with-an-accent-aigu (Micah Nicholson) provides Chip with his toughest competition thanks to a secret weapon whose virtues he extols in “Magic Foot.”

Not about to be beaten is over-achiever Marcy Park (Brooke Halliday), ninth in last year’s nationals, whose many extracurriculars allow her a mere three hours of sleep a night.

Posing every bit as much a threat to the trio of front-runners are Olive Ostrovsky (Jenna Luck), hoping in vain to impress her couldn’t-care-less father and her new-agey, off-on-a-pilgrimage-in-India mother, and Logainne Schwartzandgrubenierre (Joelle B. Lurie), who might welcome some disinterest from her overly demanding gay dads Dan Schwartz and Carl Grubenierre.

Leaf Coneybear (Clayton Michael Walker) shouldn’t even be there having come in only second runner-up in his district, but when the winner and the first runner-up prove unavailable to attend the finals, who should get to take their place but child-of-hippies Leaf.

The four remaining finalists are chosen among audience members by 3rd Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee winner Rona Lisa Peretti (Carolyn Lupin) and Vice Principal Douglas Panch (Angel Correa), returning to The Bee following a five-year hiatus caused by the teensy-weensiest of nervous breakdowns.

Finally, there’s “comfort counselor” Mitch Mahoney (Jake Burnett), doing community service by handing out juice boxes and hugs to the losers.

As one by one, spellers are eliminated by the ding of Vice Principal Panch’s bell, unexpected life lessons get learned with a little romance thrown in to bring a sentimental tear or two amidst the laughter.

Few if any contemporary musicals offer young performers the star turns afforded them by Spelling Bee, and one of my great pleasures in returning for Bee after Bee after Bee is seeing new performers add their own stamps to these already iconic roles.

What’s rarer than rare is seeing a director like Sydney Raquel, a choreographer like Jennifer Kornswiet, and a costume designer like Christopher Aceves treat Spelling Bee as if it were a world premiere without resorting to imitation, no matter how flattering to the Broadway original that might be.

In other words, Chip doesn’t have to be a boy scout, William doesn’t have to be overweight, Logainne doesn’t have to sport pigtails. Heck, Marcy doesn’t even have to be Asian-American because overly demanding parents come in all ethnicities.

And costumes don’t have to be slightly tweaked versions of the original Broadway designs, which is why I absolutely love the new looks Aceves gives each of them, in particular Logainne’s red power blazer and matching beret, William’s spiffy orange-and-white-striped button-down and orange sherbet bowtie, and Leaf’s floral hammer pants topped by a matching floral T.

And if Raquel’s innovative vision is evident from the get-go, I’m guessing that all six spellers, most of whom are still in or fresh out of college, knew from the moment they auditioned exactly how their William or Chip or Leaf or Marcy or Olive or Logainne would be different from any we’ve seen before.

With his baby face and Alfalfa center part, Nicholson’s Barfee is such an engaging mix of odd and adorable, it’s no wonder Luck’s captivatingly wistful, utterly enchanting Olive is smitten, and a stand-out Walker’s free-spirited Leaf is as weird and wacky as he is an absolute charmer.

Sanchez gives Chip a refreshingly harder edge than I’ve seen before and his battle against the horny lad’s “unfortunate erection” may well be the funniest ever, Lurie’s delightfully spunky, winningly woke Logainne is pretty darned irresistible, and a terrific Halliday plays Marcy as if all the joy had been sucked out of her, making her declaration of liberation all the more celebratory.

The adults too are fabulous, from L.A. musical theater favorite Lupin’s sunny, caring Rona Lisa to Correa’s hilariously on-the-verge-of-going-bonkers VP Panch to Burnett’s burly but big-hearted (and big-voiced) Mitch.

Music director Jennifer Schnieppe has the entire cast vocalizing and harmonizing to perfection as choreographer Kornswiet gives them plenty of inventive footwork to execute along the way.

Design kudos are shared by Aceves’s radiantly rainbow-hued costumes, scenic designer Teddy Pagee’s ingeniously scaled down gym set, Alivia Infeld’s potpourri of props, and Axiom Cutler’s impressive lighting design, with special snaps to the way Cutler’s lighting zaps Chip as he goes into another spelling trance.

Makenna Green is stage manager and Otis Perrone and Infeld are assistant stage managers. Elli Luke is IDEA representative.

Rare is the musical I can see again and again and still find myself wanting to go back for more. With the most gorgeous of scores and the most irresistible of characters, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee tops the list, and at 17 Bees and counting, I’ve never seen a finer 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee than the one now on stage at The Wayward Artist.

CSUF Grand Central Art Center, 125 N. Broadway, Santa Ana.
www.TheWaywardArtist.org

–Steven Stanley
July 14, 2024
Photos: Francis Gerard Gacad

Tags: Orange County Theater Review, Rachel Sheinkin, The Wayward Artist, William Finn