Spek-tak-yuh-ler ‘Putnam County Spelling Bee’
Closet etymologists who know a Latin root when they hear one can leave their dictionaries and Scrabble games at home and head out to indulge their love of the word at the Southampton Cultural Center’s Center
 Tom Kochie
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Stage production of the Tony Award-winning musical “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” which runs through Sunday.
Michael Disher, the director and choreographer, has put together a first-rate production with an excellent cast of adults earnestly playing 12-year-olds with pitch-perfect comic deftness. This charming (at times a wee bit raunchy) show bounces along enjoyably from the first song and is sure to appeal to anyone who has ever felt as if they didn’t belong.
The book by Rachel Sheinkin (with music and lyrics by William Finn) tells the story of six overachieving misfits vying for the spelling championship of Putnam County, with the overarching themes of peer acceptance, family dysfunction, awkward puberty, and the travails and humiliation of cutthroat competition.
The cast of contenders includes the hormonally horny Chip Tolentino (William Finn), whose “stiffy” has ruined his ability to spell, Marcy (“I speak six languages”) Park (Holly Goldstein), Logainne Schwarzandgrubeniere (Christina Stankewicz), who is saddled with two perfection-seeking gay dads, Leaf Coneybear (the excellent Christopher D’Amico), and two of the production’s standouts, Adam Fronc as William Barfeé (pronounced Bar-FEY) and Bethany Dellapolla as the awkward, tender Olive Ostrovsky.
Three additional cast members round out the ensemble: Ken Rowland plays Vice Principal Douglas Panch, who, along with Mary Ellen Roche as Rona Lisa Perretti, moderates the spelling bee with understated panache, and the versatile V.J. Chiaramonte, who plays Mitch Mahoney, a gangsta’ thug putting in time as a “comfort counselor” to the losers as part of his community service for an unnamed illegal activity.
Kudos goes to Mr. Disher, whose gifted casting and agile directing keep the production skipping along swiftly while hitting all the right emotional notes, in addition to some inspired, extremely witty hoofing.
The small set, designed by Mr. Disher, is a basketball court in a high school auditorium used with surprising economy, particularly in numbers such as “Pandemonium,” when the physical dexterity of the cast explodes into calculated chaos, in which one keeps expecting the high-octane cast members to tumble offstage.
One of the play’s conceits is that we are the fictional audience of the spelling bee as well as the actual audience of the musical, with four brave theatergoers chosen to join the cast on stage as spelling bee contestants. This device increases the intimacy of the show and enrolls the audience quickly into the stakes of the competition and the inner struggles of the six contestants.
Mr. Fronc, whose William Barfeé is the least appealing and least sympathetic speller, one of those semirepulsive, preadolescent, nasally challenged, allergic-to-everything, snarling know-it-alls, has some beautiful and memorable moments, especially when playing opposite the shy Olive (Ms. Dellapolla).
He is exceptional and surprisingly graceful in “Magic Foot,” the song that explains his secret spelling weapon, and he almost steals the show (and would have if the cast weren’t so cohesive and the characters so faithfully drawn out) in a section where the contestants are shown in a speed round of spelling that moves from a lightning-quick pace to a super-slow-mo tempo — the cast didn’t miss a single beat — and, again, Mr. Disher’s nimble directing stood out, as did Mr. Fronc’s performance.
The musical director is Michael Peterson, who, hidden behind a panel on stage, plays the piano-synthesizer, along with Matthew Fitzgerald, percussion, and a nice surprise toward the middle of the show — the sound of a cello, played by Annette Perry.
Anyone who thinks an orthographic musical featuring adults playing preadolescent nerds unbefitting an evening in the theater might want to suspend judgment and take a chance on this goofy, sweet, hilarious production.
The remaining show times will be tonight, tomorrow, and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2:30 p.m. Tickets cost $25, $10 for students, and can be reserved by calling the Southampton Cultural Center at 287-4377 or by e-mailing reservations@southamptonculturalcenter.org.