Spelling it out on stage

The Utah premiere of the musical, “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” is a student-run comedic show featuring six actors playing eccentric grade school spelling bee champs.
The director, set designers, sound designers, actors and every other individual contributing to the show are Weber State University students. Students have done everything involved with this musical, from holding auditions to planning rehearsals. Actor Kyle Olsen said he’s excited to be a part of a musical that’s been entirely put together by students.
“It’s really different that we’ve had no help and we’ve just been let go to do our own things,” Olsen said. “It’s really fun to come up with it and we’re very proud because of that.”
Along with student involvement, improvisation is another important part of this musical. At one point in the show, four audience members participate onstage in the spelling bee. They must spell different words just like the cast, so the actors must be prepared to improvise when necessary.
“The audience involvement and improvisation that the actors have to do keeps everyone on their toes,” said director Angela Jeffries. “I’m thrilled with every single performance of these actors. I’ve seen this so many times but they make me laugh every single time.”
Olsen, who plays the character William Barfee, agreed that audience involvement is a fun part in this show but was a little intimidating at first.
“When we first had people come up we didn’t know how to react,” Olsen said, “but that’s one of the special things about this show. There’s no fourth wall. Every show is completely different because of the audience members.”
Another aspect of this musical that makes it different from others is the mature content in the script.
“It’s got some explicit content,” Jeffries said. “It’s got some adult content, and we don’t see much of that here at the school. Mostly musicals are happy, cute and very clean.”
The set contains only three props including a microphone, judges’ table and a set of bleachers. Olsen said the minimal props help bring the characters to life.
“It’s good because it makes you focus more on your character,” he said. “You have to do a lot of character work and look a lot into the character and in the past of the characters. That was actually one of the funnest parts of this process was finding ourselves in the character.”
Some characters speak with accents, including Olsen whose character speaks with a nasal tone. He said it took a while to consistently speak in the same voice and sing the range of vocally challenging notes in the songs.
“You find yourself always going in and out of it so it’s kind of hard to stay in there as well as in the moment,” Olsen said. “It’s hard to sing really high like that so it did take a little bit of work.”
Actress Shelby Andersen, who plays Olive Ostrovsky, said the character has always been one of her dream roles.
“I have really supportive parents so I’m not like her in that sense,” she said. “But she’s pretty easy going and is excited about the things she likes so I would say we’re the same way in that.”
Anderson said there are two main ideas to remember while acting in this performance.
“It’s always kind of hard to play a kid because it’s finding that balance,” Andersen said. “Olive isn’t as crazy as some of the other characters so it’s kind of trying to balance her “isms.” This script is just really funny in general so it’s kind of finding the comedic timing.”
Throughout the musical, the characters are competing in the spelling bee and growing up during the process.
“The metaphor of the show is growing up,” Olsen said. “You see all these kids growing up trying to get through these awkward stages, then finally being adults. It’s great to write a musical about this awkward stage of life.”
“The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” runs Feb. 2-6 at 7:30 p.m. in the Browning Center’s Eccles Theater. Saturday evening’s performance has already sold out. Tickets are $10 or $7 for those with Weber State ID.