Auditions
The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee Audition Dates & Times
Friday, January 24th: 6-10:00 p.m.
Saturday, January 25th: 12-4:00 p.m.
Callbacks - Sunday, January 26th: 2p.m.-7:00 p.m.
Sign up for a time & Fill out an Audition Form!
Casting Policy
Pomona College values creating a space in which all beings can flourish, thrive, and create, knowing that their personhood will be respected and honored. We also recognize that each person carries with them a multitude of experiences and cultural influences.
In short, we recognize and honor the brilliant complexity of our humanity.
We are in the process of building our anti-racist framework and guidelines to aid in our creation of a compassionate, dynamic, inclusive artistic space.
In the meantime, we know and will hold to the following:
- The Pomona College Theatre Department recognizes the importance of a clear and transparent casting process. We invite students of all gender orientations, ethnicities, body types, abilities, races, religious beliefs, and experience levels to audition for our productions.
- We invite non-binary, gender non-conforming and trans students to audition for any roles they feel comfortable playing on stage.
- We aim to serve the needs of student growth while honoring inclusive casting practices and faithfulness to the playwright’s intentions.
- We aim for consent-based processes in our casting, including transparency around staged intimacy in our casting notices as well as bringing on an intimacy director for all productions.
The Department recognizes the intrinsic educational value in its productions, and endeavors to provide significant performance opportunities. Therefore, a student may be cast in only one faculty directed production per semester.
Once a student is cast in a production, they are expected to attend all rehearsals to which they are called; we expect full attendance for tech week and performances.
The Department encourages students to direct any questions about casting to the director, production manager, and/or department chair.
More Information on The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee below.
The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee - FAQs
When and where are auditions for The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee?
Auditions for The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee will be held January 24-26, 2025 in the Seaver Theatre.
Students interested in auditioning need to fill out both the Signup form and Audition form.
What do I need to prepare?
For auditions, please come prepared with a monologue (from your favorite play, musical, song lyrics, or poem - material that you love and care about) and 2 minutes of a song (about a verse and a chorus or the bridge and final chorus, etc.). Please bring sheet music or backing track, or, if you're new to musical theatre, an a cappella song is great (preferablly from the musical theatre canon, but Happy Birthday works too!). Callbacks will be group or paired activities which will include cold readings from the script and musical sides. You will also be asked to move/take part in a short piece of choreography. Please wear clothes that you are comfortable singing and dancing in.
Students of ALL experience levels and abilities are encouraged to audition!
Who is directing?
Fran de Leon is directing The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.
A word from the director:
I'm deeply thrilled to return to Pomona College next season to direct The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Having seen firsthand how talented and hard working the students were with a dark comedy last season, I'm very much looking forward to experiencing their musical prowess in a Tony Award winning show. Like with Everybody, the element of randomness and improv guarantees that no two performances will look the same, and that’s bound to be an exciting rehearsal process that will challenge and inspire the company.
What is the play about?
About The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee by William Finn, Rachel Sheinkin, Rebecca Feldman: An eclectic group of six mid-pubescents vie for the spelling championship of a lifetime. While candidly disclosing hilarious and touching stories from their home lives, the tweens spell their way through a series of (potentially made-up) words, hoping never to hear the soul-crushing, pout-inducing, life un-affirming "ding" of the bell that signals a spelling mistake. Six spellers enter; one speller leaves a champion! At least the losers get a juice box.
Overall Content Advisory: The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is a playful musical comedy (with moments of gravitas) where characters' blocking and choreography may include contact with other characters and set pieces. This play makes a number of jokes around bullying, socialized gendered behaviors, as well as a number of communities including racial and religious groups. This show also depicts and contains narratives around familial neglect and unhealthy pressure, anxiety, depression, and homophobia. This show contains ableist slurs, derogatory stereotypes about surrogates, as well as stereotypes about "show" parents and spelling bee contestants.
The musical contains sexually suggestive content, sexual innuendo, mature themes and mild adult language.
Feel free to ask any questions about any charged content in this show if you need more information in order to consent to a role/being a part of this production.
Who are the characters?
THE SPELLERS:
CHIP TOLENTINO (actor also plays JESUS) The reigning spelling champion of Putnam County, relatively athletic and social, he expects things to come easily to him. Lately though, he's been going through some weird changes, and things are slipping out of his control. (Solo requires him to sing a lot of high notes a lot of times.)
LOGAINNE SCHWARTZANDGRUBENNIERE Younger than most bee participants, she is driven by internal and external pressure & shy; but above all by a desire to win to make her two fathers (from whom she takes her combined last name) proud. She lisps, is a little uncomfortable in her body, has some tics, but still manages to strike a strong presence with her political awareness and keen sense of justice. Having drilled words for hours a day, she is aware of everything that passes in the room.
LEAF CONEYBEAR [actor also plays CARL DAD) A second alternate, he never expected to compete here today. Home-schooled with his many siblings, everything about this public bee is an adventure for him, from meeting the other kids to showing off his homemade clothing, to each moment of unexpected attention. He may have severe Attention Deficit Disorder but delights in his own wandering focus. Leaf doesn't expect to win- or even to spell one word correctly & shy; but he finds absolutely everything incredibly amusing. His mother has made him wear his protective helmet to the bee.
WILLIAM BARFEE Has a host of health problems and a lot to prove. Loud and combative as a defensive posture, he is the fat kid who becomes a bully to avoid being picked on (though he often gets picked on anyway so gets into a lot of fights). His parents are divorced, his father remarried to a much younger woman; and William does not expect kindness from anyone but his mother. So friendship takes him by surprise. Still, he's noticed on the spelling circuit for his remarkable technique - spelling words out on the floor with his foot. Taken out of competition last year because of an ill-timed allergic reaction, he's here for vindication. The journey he doesn't expect is one of coming to care about someone else -when he sees outside his own needs for perhaps the first time, it shakes him fundamentally.
MARCY PARK The ultimate over-achiever, Marcy has never been given another option. She comes from a family where excellence is expected and so simply produced. A parochial school student, she assumes God, too, expects perfection. She sees herself as a mass of problems but she keeps them to herself. Having moved often because of her parents' work, she knows she can beat the local competition. Her many talents include piano, dance, martial arts, baton twirling, and/or whatever special gifts you can find in your casting pool.
OLIVE OSTROVSKY (precast) A word lover, Olive has a fairly quiet life. An only child with often-absent parents, Olive spends a lot of her time alone. She fills some of that time reading the. dictionary-the words bring her comfort, as does the idea of the vastness of the world the book contains. During the first half of the bee, she often peers into the audience to see if her father, who is delayed at work, has made it yet. She starts enormously shy, and shyly blossoms.
THE ADULTS: RONA LISA PERRETTI (Actor also plays OLIVE's MOM in fantasy) Putnam's long-time spelling bee hostess, a local realtor, and 3rd annual Putnam County spelling champion. This is the Rona's day to be queen. From her perspective she keeps the bee running smoothly, upholds protocol, and conveys crucial information to the audience. Her interest in the competition is unflagging and drives it forward. She thinks of this as a complex cerebral sporting event, and she wants the audience to understand every twist and turn. If anything, in her life in general, she has to minimize the importance of this event to her, embarrassed that her own championship moment remains such a highlight. A little concerned when the substitute word pronouncer arrives, she knows she has to step up her game to make the day a success.
VICE PRINCIPAL DOUGLAS PANCH of Lake Hemingway Dos Passos Junior High is frustrated with his life. He fell into education, less out of love than a general ability uncoupled to a particular passion. The drive of the young spellers is alien to him. He never found anything that important. Stuck in his current job, endlessly awaiting a promotion that isn't coming, he was not happy to get the call this morning that he was needed to substitute; but he starts the bee eager to do well, to redeem himself for past mistakes, and to impress the local hostess, Rona Lisa, who impressed him long ago.
MITCH MAHONEY (Actor also plays DAN DAD, and OLIVE's DAD in fantasy) With a bouncer's physique and demeanor, Mitch appears an odd choice to be the bee's "comfort counselor," but it's part of his community service assignment. The outsider, who in a way gets to inhabit the audience perspective, he wonders about the wisdom of putting the kids through this at all. He has no idea how to offer comfort, but does increasingly find himself wishing he could find a way to make the kids feel better about losing, and perhaps place misspelling in wider perspective.
Roles may be doubled or split; tbd at auditions.
When are rehearsals/performances?
Seaver Theatre
February 17th through April 13th
(No rehearsals: March 17th through 23rd Spring Break; March 28th Cesar Chavez Day observed)
Rehearsals: February 17th – April 4th
Dress Tech: Thursday, Saturday, or Sunday March 27th, 29th or 30th
Tech Week: April 5th – April 9th
Performances: Thursday, April 10th, Friday, April 11th, Saturday, April 12th at 7:30pm; Saturday, April 12th and Sunday, April 13th at 2pm
Strike: Sunday, April 13th, following the performance
Where can I find the script?
Here is the script.