Last weekend I caught one of the last shows of the 2nd run of the local production of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee at the RCBC theater (Atlantis Productions).

It’s a short musical comedy revolving around a spelling bee, featuring contestants Chip Tolentino,  Leaf Coneybear, Logainne Schwartzandgrubenierre, Olive Ostrovsky,  Marcy Park, and William Barfee, some guest spellers from the audience, and the adults Rona Lisa Peretti, Vice Principal Panch, and comfort counselor Mitch Mahoney

While Avenue Q is still my favorite,  Spelling Bee was  hilarious too and we were laughing our heads off the whole time. I really loved Leaf Coneybear’s trance-like spelling of names of South American rodents and William  Barfee’s magic foot. The girl characters weren’t as funny though, and sometimes even annoying.

The reason I mention this musical is because it reminded me of the book Bee Season by Myla Goldberg, which I read last year, and realized I haven’t reviewed it here yet.

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