William Finn and Rachel Sheinkin's The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee will make a NYC return at Off-Broadway's New World Stages, with performances to begin November 7 ahead of a November 17 opening night. The limited engagement will continue through February 15. The revival will mark the 20th anniversary of the 2005 musical.
The revival will be a new production, directed and choreographed by Danny Mefford (Kimberly Akimbo). The NYC engagement follows an earlier run, also helmed by Mefford, at Washington, D.C.'s Kennedy Center. That bow featured a starry cast led by Bonnie Milligan, Noah Galvin, Beanie Feldstein, and more. No casting has been revealed for the New York engagement.
The musical, which premiered on Broadway in 2005 after an Off-Broadway run, features a Tony-winning book by Sheinkin (adapted from a play by Rebecca Feldman) and music and lyrics by the late two-time Tony winner Finn. The work is set at a fictional middle school spelling bee, where a lovable band of misfits—plus a few lucky audience members—assemble to duke it out on their knowledge of word spellings and languages of origin. The show was a Best Musical nominee at the 2005 Tony Awards, winning for Sheinkin's book and original cast member Dan Fogler's featured performance.
From & Juliet to Something Rotten! to The Frogs, the Bard has been a central character in several shows, from ahistorical musical comedies to reference-drenched dramas.