STEVENS POINT, Wis. (WSAU) -- Opening tonight at UW-Stevens Point it's 'The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee'.
The show won a Tony Award in 2005 and follows the antics of a regional school spelling bee somewhere in the Midwest. Professor Mark Hanson says the show is full of improv and wit, and four lucky audience members get to join the show. "We get people who agree to be spellers for the show, and they join the cast on stage and spell words and misspell words and all sorts of things, so every performance is somewhat different, yeah, everyone has got its own unique thing."
This show is being performed in the Noel Center's Studio Theatre, a highly configurable space that allows for small shows like this to be performed. Hanson says only 150 seats are sold a night. "It's a much more environmental set and environmental space, and the audience is right there. There's not a bad seat in the house, you're right in the action." This allows for a lot of cast and audience interaction, vital to the show's performance.
Hanson says he picked the piece to compliment the rather serious program from last year. "I thought it would be a perfect show, I'm surprised they hadn't done it. And it's just a lot of fun, and I think that's we need sometimes now that winter has set upon us."
The show runs this weekend and next. You can get tickets online at http://tickets.uwsp.edu or by calling the box office at 715-346-4100