Photos courtesy of Jem War ’26
On April 15 and 16, Conn’s student-run theater club Wig and Candle put on their mainstage production of “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.” The show was directed by Caleb Butler and musically directed by Sabrina Malec. An amazing cast and crew made the night full of talent, hilarious jokes, and of course some silly spellings.
Initially, the show was slated to be performed in Oliva Hall, but the show was upgraded a week before curtain call to the much more professional Evans Hall.
Friday night’s show saw around 70 students come out to support the cast and crew. The numbers increased on Saturday night to over 100 – there were so many students, in fact, that they ran out of programs as people piled in to see the show . The stage was set up for a spelling bee, with participants’ chairs and a judge’s table. But the production was not confined to the stage. The musical number “Pandemonium” featured the cast members jumping on and off the stage, singing and causing chaos up the isles and in the pit. Breaking the fourth wall made the audience feel like fellow cast members in the comedy spectacular. Some lucky audience members even got to join in the show itself. Upon arriving at the show, audience members could sign up to be guest spellers who got to go up on stage, spell and even participate in dance numbers. A special shoutout goes to one Saturday’s guest speller none other than theater Professor Jaffe who joined in the fun for most of the first act.
Some individual highlights of the show:
- Rona Lisa Peretti’s (Katie Caviness) classic expressions as she attempted to control the cast of spellers. Caviness fully sold Rona’s character of the spelling bee champion whose life peak was winning that title.
- Sophia Bianchi as Chip Tolentino lent in to her masculine side portraying the middle school boy crushing on a randomly chosen audience member. His unfortunate erection at Leaf’s sister left the audience in stitches.
- Logainne Schwartzandgrubenierre’s (Louise Wade) overbearing parents did not stop her from reaching political success and overcoming her stammar in the end.
- Leaf Coneybear’s (Jo Duckett) cape caused chaos on the stage as Duckett adorned their fellow spellers with stickers and, later in the show, their sock puppet nailed spelling capybara. Seems like you actually are quite smart, Coneybear, after all.
- William Morris Barfée’s (Elora Maxwell) humorous “Magic Foot” rendition complete with the best jazzy dance moves
- Marcy Park (Cate Hashemi), who artfully spoke six languages, yet realized (thanks to Jesus) that she didn’t need to win at spelling to be happy.
- Olive Ostrovsky (Maggie Sendlenski) gave a moving performance of “The I Love You Song.” Her parents may not have turned up to see her, but she found a friend– and not just the dictionary this time– through spelling.
- Lucy Stefani played a perfect Vice Principal Douglas Panch who would have rather done anything other than judge a spelling bee.
- Maddy Fisher embodied a quality ex-convict Mitch Mahoney, consoling the spellers who did not make a win, including Professor Jaffe himself in a classic role reversal.
Perhaps the most exciting and unexpected element of the show occurred on the second night when Conn Theater Professor David Jaffe was called up to the stage to participate in the Bee. Jaffe sped through the first act and, eventually, was forcibly disqualified so that the show could move on to its second act.
This show drew quite a crowd, so suffice to say, Wig and Candle was fortunate to have the space afforded by Evans Hall. With crowds brought to their feet each night, dancing and hollering with laughter, the “25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” was a once in a lifetime experience.
