Reviewed by Tony Annicone
Providence College’s Blackfriars Theatre’s first show of their season is “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” which is a one act musical with music and lyrics by Massachusetts native William Finn and a book by Rachel Sheinkin. The show centers around a fictional spelling bee in a fictional middle school in Putnam County. While the title tells you the plot, the show is character driven. Six quirky adolescents compete in the Bee, run by six quirky adults. The children are in the throes of puberty, overseen by adults who barely managed to escape puberty themselves.
