In February 2013, ARC produced the musical The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Spelling Bee is a one act musical comedy conceived by Rebecca Feldman with music and lyrics by William Finn, a book by Rachel Sheinkin and additional material by Jay Reiss. The show centers on a fictional spelling bee set in a geographically ambiguous Putnam Valley Middle School. Six quirky adolescents compete in the Bee, run by three equally-quirky grown-ups. The original Broadway production ran for a grand total of 1136 performances between 2005 and 2008. It won 2 Tony Awards for Best Book of a Musical and Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical.

Performance Season

The performance season ran over two weeks and included 5 performances:

• Friday 8th February: 8pm (Gala-Cocktail Attire Event) Saturday 9th February: 8pm Thursday 14th February: 8pm Friday 15th February: 8pm Saturday 16th February: 8pm
• The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee was performed at the Banyule Theatre, Heidelberg

Cast

Chip Tolentino	Josh Gavin
William Barfee	Nathan Slevin
Olive Ostrovsky	Eleanor Horsburgh
Leaf Coneybear	Jason Vikse
Loginne SchwartzandGrubenierre	Ashleigh Psaila
Marcy Park	Chelsea Tsaparis
Mitch Mahoney	Dom Hennequin
Rona Lisa Peretti	Jaclyn DeVincentis
Vice Principal Douglas Panch	Nicholas Durbridge

Producers (ARC Committee)

President	Louise Parsons
Vice President	Nathan Slevin
Treasurer	Louise Parsons
Secretary	Leighton Irwin
General Representatives	Sasha Hennequin Matthew Wheatland

Artistic Team

Director	Carl Whiteside
Musical Director	James Mustafa
Assistant Director	Evan Mulholland
Cast Choreographer	Ashleigh Psaila