Bulk of cast of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee at Novato Theater Company. Photo by Jere Torkelsen.
By WOODY WEINGARTEN
Some may attend The Novato Theater Company’s The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee expecting less than perfect performances, mistakes, and unclear words because it’s a community theater production.
They’ll be deliciously surprised. The show’s phenomenal, on any level anyone might judge.
No bad performances. No screw-ups. No muffled words.
The fun begins with the first song and continues throughout. It’s most clearly shown through the limber, Ray Bolger-like legs of Dominic Marco Canty as speller William Morris Barfée; the wild-eyed, pigtailed Carly Harrington (inhabiting the body of Logainne “Schwartzy” SchwartzandGruenierre, daughter of two dads who’s an endless activist for this cause and that); and Marlee Ostrom, who with flying red cape and yellow helmet zips back and forth in her gender-bending role as Leaf Coneybear.
The rest of the nine-member ensemble acquit themselves marvelously well, not missing an opportunity to make the perma-smile on audience faces deepen.
Nicole Stanley (center) communicates with spirits of absent parents, Dani Innocenti Beem and Nick James Augusta. Photo by Jere Torkelsen.
Best of the 24 musical numbers include “My Favorite Moment of the Bee,” a three-part tune by Dani Innocenti-Beem as Rona Lisa Peetti, past winner and bee host, and “The I Love You Song,” poignantly sung by Nicole Stanley as Olive Ostrovsky, with her typically absent parents joining her in a cameo at tune’s end.
The 25th Annual… features a handful of role-changing cameos, in fact, by actors doubling or tripling their personas. And, similarly, Marilyn Izdebski is her usual triple threat, fashioning the sprightly choreography, casting the production along with the director and music conductor, and overseeing the consistently unobtrusive but effective lighting (except when it flashes frenziedly during “Pandemonium”).
The Tony Award-winning show, which ran on Broadway from 2005 to 2008, starts in Novato by displaying bursts of energy, an aspect that will be emphasized throughout. Original lyrics and book, which explore contestants’ inner hopes, feelings, identities, and home life, are by Rachel Sheinkin. William Finn composed the music. Christopher Hewitt artistically conducts three other musicians and plays keyboards for this rendition, making sure the rhythms don’t override the ubiquitous wit, puns, and physical comedy.
Director Larry Williams has ensured that, at any given moment, the quirky, caricature-like characters are extremely bug-eyed with wonder or forlornly tight-lipped.
Four audience volunteers are — surprise! — smoothly added to the spellers’ lineup (and, as might be expected, equally smoothly eliminated one by one by impossibly difficult words).
Some set-pieces are ecstatically gleeful — such as a Pledge of Allegiance in which no two kids are on the same page; a boy eliminated because he’s crushing on a girl in the crowd and awkwardly hiding his erection (which he gloriously sings about); and a personal appearance by Jesus.
Joyous, too, are some character delineations: The boy who spells out the words on the floor with his “magic foot” and a girl who spells them out on her forearm.
And local viewers can’t help but grin at current references to Zandaya, GLP-1 weight-loss pills, and Donald J. Trump’s banning three progressive media outlets from the White House and proclaiming that “we should all spell the woke-iest words we can.”
The set, which immediately places theatergoers in a high school gym replete with grandstands, a scoreboard, a basketball hoop, and a bee-funding ad by local optometrists, was designed by Perry Nelson. Playful costumes by Christina Stephan and Cheryl Evans add to the exuberance evidenced by the cast.
Amazingly, unlike almost all Broadway extravaganzas, the 1¾-hour show totally avoids four-letter words (not counting love).
So remind me: How do you spell sluice? And fun?
The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee will run at the Novato Theater Company, 5420 Nave Drive, Novato, through Oct. 11. Tickets: $28.50 to $40.50 (plus $1.50 booking fee). Info: info@novatotheatercompany.org or 415-883-4498.
Woody Weingarten, a longtime voting member of the San Francisco Bay Area Theater Critics Circle, can be contacted by email at voodee@sbcglobal.net or on his websites, https://woodyweingarten.com and https://vitalitypress.com. His books include Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner’s breast cancer, aimed at male caregivers; MysteryDates — How to keep the sizzle in your relationship; The Roving I, a compilation of 70 of his newspaper columns; and Grampy and His Fairyzona Playmates, a whimsical fantasy intended for 6- to 10-year-olds that he co-authored with his then 8-year-old granddaughter.
