Words of love, words of life: MTG’s “Spelling Bee” spins a spellbinding tale of the evolution of self
Living with second place is a lesson one could stand to learn.
The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee
Musical Theatre Guild
Directed by Geoffrey Hegg
Produced by Grace Anderson & Jon Rosario
Kresge Little Theater
Shows:
August 30th–31st
September 1st
September 5th–7th
Spoiler Warning: This article contains spoilers from the Musical Theatre Guild’s “Spelling Bee.”
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“There are no stars here,” a note from the musical’s director, plastered on page seven of a 27-page playbill handed to the audience, read.
Syzygy. S-Y-Z-Y-G-Y. (def: A conjunction or opposition, especially of the moon with the sun. — Alt. A pair of connected or corresponding things.)
For the most part, over the show’s hour-and-a-half runtime, the statement holds true: its narrative tells the stories of six kids at their annual county spelling bee, competing against one another to win a golden trophy, $200 to go into their schooling, and a lesson of life. The musical’s primary storyline follows the hours of the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee and its six protagonist contestants (alongside four additional background participants), all of whom advanced to the county level from their respective schools.
Each of the show’s preteen stars comes to the spelling bee—a highly dramatic affair orchestrated by local realtor and contest hostess Rona Perretti (Daphne Faber ’23), alongside middle school vice principal Douglas Panch (David Ulloa ’23) and comfort counselor Mitch Mahoney (Jon Rosario ’24)—with their own personal trials and tribulations that all bring about unique flavors of chaos to the junior high gym that the contest is held in.
The first contestant to be introduced is Chip Tolentino (Michael Mandanas ’22), the incumbent champion from last year’s Putnam County bee. Mandanas’s Chip takes on a special blend of playful jock mixed in with a hint of lovestruck middle school nerd, a dichotomy made clear between the character’s intermittent bouts of overenthusiastic self-confidence and tween-boy sheepishness.
Second on the bill is Logainne Schwartzandgrubenniere (Maia Campbell ’22), whose eccentric surname comes from an odd-choice combination of her two loving but overbearing fathers’. Campbell nails the character’s modestness and quiet perfectionism, although her most distinctive moments over the course of the musical are drowned out by her more visible peers. (There is some irony there in Campbell’s muted on-stage presence mirroring her character’s own difficulties in being heard and recognized.)
Next up is Leaf Coneybear (You Na Lee G), the strangest of the characters by far. (One could reasonably describe the character as a “free spirit,” a synonymous description I pulled for the term by Googling “synonyms for strange” and selecting the most fun one that came up.)
Lee, without a doubt, is my favorite cast member—her flippant, devil-may-care approach to Coneybear’s excitable irreverence was honestly enough to put the musical on my shortlist. (I brought my camera with me as the show’s contracted photographer for my viewing of the dress rehearsal, and Lee’s spotlight-stealing attempts at grabbing my attention all throughout the showing was hysterical.) The scintillating peppiness she brought to the stage at times felt like part of Lee’s own personality; I genuinely couldn’t tell at what parts Lee ended and Leaf began.
William Barfee (Estevan Cortez ’26), interestingly enough, reads as the odd one out of the bunch: Barfee—pronounced like parfait but with a “b”—is somewhat of a loner, a bullied nerd who became the kind of middle school villain he always sought to beat. Barfee’s kind of nerd is that of the haughty and self-important; Cortez plays the part perfectly, capturing the bumbling asocial instincts that underlie the character’s snobbish attitude towards those he feels are less than peers.
In her own way, Marcy Park (Marisol Roma, Research Associate) fulfills the role of the traditional overachieving G&T (Gifted and Talented) kid, a story that, unfortunately, is at some level forgettable when slotted within the halls of MIT. Still, Roma’s interpretation of her character is inviting, and her performances (“I speak six languages!” she claims in one musical number) had me humming along to the beat. (I still sometimes recite parts of that number’s chorus unprompted.)
Lastly comes my favorite character, the mousy Olive Ostrovsky (Grace Anderson G). Anderson’s reading of the character is deeply relatable in a way that I don’t think anyone else could have done. And honestly, the fictional Olive’s growth throughout the spelling bee reflects the journeys of more (supposedly) real students at MIT than she may have ever anticipated.
Faber’s Rona, Ulloa’s Panch, and Rosario’s Mitch served as perfect supports and foils to each of the kids’ anti-adult personalities—the three definitely have their moments in the spotlight, but nonetheless very gracefully keep pace for the show’s six tween protagonists.
And to round off the cast are four pre-selected audience volunteers who act as additional speller-contestants (none of whom are given much direction other than to avoid overshadowing the real actors), topping off the highly improvisational Act I.
Discretionary power in the engineering of this section’s unplanned nature (which is accordingly deeply contradictory to the meticulously choreographic style of a traditional musical) falls on contest judges Panch and Rona, who are tasked with masterminding the gradual culling of the show’s four volunteer spellers by the time of intermission.
The musical’s playbill promise, although mostly fulfilled by its unique narrative structure, is nonetheless somewhat dampened by plot and personality.
Chip, as the reigning Putnam County champion, unsurprisingly takes up a larger chunk of Kresge Little’s tight atmosphere than his counterparts. (The character does not actually take center stage over his peers over the course of the musical’s first act, but Mandanas’s natural on-stage charisma gravitates the audience to him nonetheless.)
There’s little indication from the show’s opening songs that Cortez’s Barfee (again, pronounced parfait with a “b”) would eventually take on the role of leading man upon Chip’s sudden elimination from the contest at the end of the show’s first act, especially alongside his more likable counterparts. Yet it takes hold of the show’s primary storyline, and much of the characterization for the other four protagonists are jarringly pushed aside to make way for Olive’s and Barfee’s rivalrous-friendly-romantic(?) dynamic that ultimately forces itself as the narrative’s central conflict.
In terms of its overarching story beats, the musical falters: it follows a rather bare-bones plot that faces the same type of complexity problem as any other school-set story. Ten kids in with wishful hopes and fanciful dreams, one kid out with a trophy in hand.
But the devil really is in the details, and where the musical really shines is in the series of character-centric vignettes that make up the bulk of its runtime.
Each of the six main characters step in and out of the spotlight almost seamlessly. Through various musical numbers and monologues, we gradually learn more and more pieces to the puzzle of each person’s story—how they got there, what they’re looking for, and what will eventually happen to them.
My favorite musical number was Olive’s “The I Love You Song,” an ode to her absentee parents and her unfulfilled hopes for somebody to be there for her, to really be there for her. The performance takes shape as a fanciful daydream of Olive in the midst of her spelling of C-H-I-M-E-R-I-C-A-L (def: Unreal. Imaginary. Visionary), where she dreams of parents who would even once say “I love you to her.” Words truly fail to express how deeply emotional this number was. Anderson’s performance was, as frankly as possible, phenomenal.
I will express a secondary grievance in the lack of real, meaningful interaction between the musical’s six protagonists. At times, “Spelling Bee” felt like six separate stories in a trenchcoat. How does Marcy, for example, really meaningfully interact with her fellow contestants? Also, what purpose does Coneybear actually serve to the plot other than as comic relief?
Nonetheless, I found the piece-by-piece formation of each character’s background satisfying. Even if I had wished for more plot-relevant back-and-forth among all six lead cast members, the gradual genesis of Olive’s and Barfee’s feud for first place was for the most part satisfactory (regardless of my perspective that the pair’s chemistry was not as adequate as one would hope to really propel the plot’s central conflict).
The show’s multilinearity is perhaps best captured by none other than its collagic climax, which headlines the musical’s second act through a stunning rapid-fire montage of the contest’s five finalists—the just-happy-to-be-here Leaf Coneybear, not-all-business Ms. Park, it’s-pronounced-Bar-fay Mr. Barfee, my-dad-will-be-here-soon Ms. Ostrovsky, and gunning-for-first-prize Ms. Schwartzandgrubenniere.
In a grand polyphonic finaletto duetted by the competition’s two remaining contestants as all others are eventually cut from the running, Olive and Barfee (and for the last time, it’s parfait but with a “b”) battle it out—with the so-called Magic Foot himself emerging victorious.
The only thing that nagged me as the show concluded was the way the victory went down: Olive’s storyline follows her journey in learning to stand up for herself, and Barfee’s in learning to care for others. Yet Olive still yields and Barfee, though moved by her, after everything takes the trophy for himself.
But I suppose the bee itself and its winner don’t matter, a sentiment perfectly echoed by Olive and Barfee’s nonetheless budding friendship. When the contest ends with Barfee declared the champion of the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee from an almost-effortless spelling of Weltanschauung (def: One’s personal perspective. Your philosophy. The way you look at the world), he took the opportunity not to gloat—as he most certainly would have at the beginning of the story—but to, as his typical awkward self, console Olive as she comes to terms with her defeat.
When the dust has settled and all has been done, all the contestants come out of their unexpectedly metamorphic gauntlet with a forever-changed outlook and a new lease on life.
The musical concludes with epilogues of each character’s post-Putnam County journeys: Chip, Marcy, Logainne, Barfee, and Olive—alongside Panch, Rona, and Mitch—all find themselves forever changed by the experience. Many for the better. But for some, it’s complicated.
And Coneybear... I’m not entirely sure what the moral of the story is for Coneybear. I don’t know that there is one, and I’m not sure that’s such a bad thing. (There are merits to not having a life lesson to learn.)
In the end, it wasn’t about the trophy or the $200 or the (nonexistent) social status obtained from winning a regional spelling tournament—the real treasure was, quite literally, the friends we made along the way.
And maybe that’s not such a bad thing, either.
The musical’s director writes it best: “As you watch tonight, I hope you find yourself not just entertained, but also touched by the sincerity and humor of these characters. They may be spelling words, but they’re also spelling out the universal experience of growing up, finding oneself, and navigating the challenges life throws at us.”