Theater Review: "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee" at NVCC

WATERBURY - The Naugatuck Valley Community College presented a delightful production of “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” this weekend on the stage of their campus mainstage. The final performance is today at 2:00 p.m.

The mainstage has been transformed into the gymnasium of the Putnam County High School, home of the fighting Wombats, courtesy of legendary set builder Bill Cone. Cone recently passed the 40 year mark designing sets for NVCC productions and will be retiring at the end of the semester.

“Spelling Bee” features music and lyrics by William Finn and a book written by Rachel Sheinkin with some additional material by Jay Reiss. Director Sasha Bratt, an associate professor at NVCC, leads his students in another fine production.

I was very impressed with Roynce Kee in her first college production as the realtor/bee coordinator Rona Lisa Perretti. She has such a great singing voice and the perfect stage presence for this leading role.

Edward Antigua (Theo in “Pippin”) is just perfect in the role of Vice Principal Douglas Panch. Shauna Llamas has some topical humor about the Oscars in her monologue in the role of Logainne SchwartzandGrubenierre. It is hard to believe that this marks her first show at the college.

NVCC Music major Jalon Copeland tackles the role of William Barfee and Paige Gumpert does very well as the no-nonsense Marcy Park. Ethan Ledina has fun with his role of Chip Tolentino and Ivanelie Mangual uses her great singing voice in her first NVCC production as the Comfort Counselor (and slightly scary) Mitch Mahoney.

Makayla Balducci gives a delightful rendition of the role of speller Olive Ostrovsky; she shows off a wonderful singing voice. Sayde Mendell bends the typical gender of Leaf Coneybear and is magically effective. Branch is credited as Leaf’s (adorable) Puppet.

Emily Burns covers the roles of Olive’s Mom and Leaf’s Mom and Devin Mallon portrays both Olive’s Dad and Marcy’s Dad. Vincent Griffin steps into the roles of Jesus and Leaf’s Dad. Logainne's helicopter dads are played by Kyle Scriven as Dan Dad in his first appearance onstage in a full production and Halo Award winner Tyler White as Carl Dad. Stephanie Caplan sits in the spelling bee audience as Marigold Coneybear.

The musicians who sit in a special built-in space on the side of the stage and make the score sound wonderful. Terrance Griswold covers woodwinds, Sarah Shreder could be seen masterfully playing cello, Colin Mason plays percussion and Musical Director Dr. Gil Harel is behind the keyboard.

Will Jeffries is the master carpenter who built Cone’s set and has been doing so since 2014. The costumes designed by Lisa Bebey help define each of the various characters and look great when lit by Jonathan Curns.

The show runs two hours with one 15 intermission. This year’s spellers were ready for the competition and congratulations to all involved.