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Olive Ostrovsky (Emmi Connick, junior) tries to make her absent parents proud. Connick says that she has enjoyed developing the more emotional side of her character (dealing with parents that are never home) as much as the comical side.

Drama club has turned the PAC into the venue of a high stakes middle school spelling competition in its production of 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.

“Some people would think that it’s really boring and just like ‘alright, come up and spell a word,” but it’s more than that,” Delaney Katz, junior who plays Brooke, said. “It has a lot of funny moments but also a lot of songs and everything that can pull at your heartstrings at time.”

The spellers make connections with the moderators and even their competitors over the course of the competition as songs and dialogue reveal their personalities. From a headstrong girl with two dads, to a kid in a bicycle helmet, to a girl who misses her parents, the spellers are as unique as the words they have to spell.

“The spellers are each different and quirky in their own ways,” Emmi Connick, junior who plays dictionary loving Olive, said. “Their little quirks are shown through the songs they sing and the words they get to spell during the competition.”

Watching a spelling bee may not be how everyone spends their Friday night, but to the spellers and their families, the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee can do more for the audience besides expanding their vocabularies.

“I think the show is very funny and unique to anything that we have ever done before,” Mike Joynt, senior stage manager, said. “It’s a good time and there’s a lot of times where we include the audience which I’ve never seen before in another show.”

Audience participation, nerds with raging hormones, braces, and witty humor (sometimes delivered with a characteristic lisp) is what really sets the show apart from other productions at LZHS. Spectators of the bee can laugh, cry, and cringe their way through the competition along with the spellers themselves.

Spellers and non-spellers alike can get a piece of the academic action by purchasing tickets priced at $10 for adults and $8 for students and seniors online or at the door.

Community members, students, parents, and spellers themselves can watch six oddball tweens battle their way to the top April 27-29 at 7pm or at an additional matinee at 2pm on Saturday.