All About Musicals

Broadway isn’t just for New York anymore, as can be seen by Chicago’s permanent staging of Wicked. Now The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is following suit, with the original Broadway cast premiering the show in Los Angeles.

Much like the film version of the musical Rent, the original cast will be reunited in this special four-week run of the show, which depicts “six young people in the throes of puberty, overseen by grown-ups who barely managed to escape childhood themselves, learn that winning isn’t everything and that losing doesn’t necessarily make you a loser” (from the official Web site).

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee will have a special limited engagement: a four-week run at California’s Wadsworth Theatre, located on the Veteran Administration Grounds in Brentwood. It begins previews on May 24, and opens for regular audiences on May 27. It will play through June 17.

The complete L.A. cast, who are reprising their roles in the original Broadway company and the show’s off-Broadway run at Second Stage, is listed below:

Derrick Baskin as Mitch Mahoney
Deborah S. Craig as Marcy Park
Jesse Tyler Ferguson as Leaf Coneybear
Dan Fogler as William Barfee
Lisa Howard as Rona Lisa Peretti
Celia Keenan-Bolger as Olive Ostrovsky
Jose Llana as Chip Tolentino
Jay Reiss as Douglas Panch
Sarah Saltzberg as Logainne Schwartzandgrubenierre

Technorati Tags: The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, musicals, musical theatre, musical theater