Zionsville’s Off Main Street Players will perform acclaimed musical this month
By Sophie Pappas
It’s middle school and it’s awkward. That is the setting for the next Off Main Street Players’ performance.
The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee took home six Tony Awards in 2005, and now it is coming to Zionsville with the town’s very own nonprofit community theater troupe.
“It’s a really fun show,” said show director Lynne Manning. “It’s a musical so it’s different for us and just really fun.”
The show
The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is a one-act musical comedy written by Rebecca Feldman, with music and lyrics written by William Finn. The show chronicles a middle school spelling bee experience for six students and the three adults judging and assisting them.
“It’s just quirky,” Manning said. “They are all just trying to find their way through life as depicted in the spelling bee. It really shows that we’re all a little quirky, and middle school is the most quirky time.”
Manning, who has directed two previous shows for the Off Main Street Players and is the drama director for Zionsville West Middle School, said that the show opens with a monologue by character Rona Lisa Peretti.
Peretti, played by Rachel McFadden, is the third annual Putnam County Spelling Bee winner, who is now a coordinator for the event. The show then follows the stressors, difficulties and joys the contestants go through during the bee.
During each performance, the cast will select four members of the audience to be a part of the improvisation segments of the show.
“It is absolutely a lot of fun,” said musical director Doug Krantz, of Carmel. “I met Lynne several years ago and I’ve just loved working with her on these shows. I teach the cast the music so Lynne can do her directing and it works great.”
In spite of the fun-loving atmosphere on stage, Manning is quick to point out that this show is not meant for young families.
“It is intended for mature audiences,” she said. “There is some low level raunchiness, and some adult humor and adult situations, but it makes the middle school environment interesting.”
Rae Cortopassi, the Off Main Street Players company’s managing director, said that the show is really PG-13 and has presented a unique set of challenges because it is a musical.
“It’s a really popular show,” Cortopassi said. “We’ve wanted to do this show for a long time … because it has such charm with audiences. But it’s got some choice words here and there.”
The company
This musical is only the second musical to have ever been performed by Off Main Street Players, a group that reinvented community theater in 2005 when Cortopassi and friend Bret Brewer decided that Zionsville needed a theater troupe.
Cortopassi, a member of the Fox 59 news team and a Zionsville resident, said it all started at a church function, when he and Brewer first met and starting talking about their mutual love of performing.
“I hadn’t done theater in years,” Cortopassi said. “I did community theater in Chicago, but once I got my first job I had to quit.”
Learning that in 1966 a group of Zionsville theater lovers formed the Off Main Street Players, Cortopassi and Brewer decided to bring the group back to life. The first show the group performed was Plaza Suite in 2005.
In the nearly 10 years of performing, the Off Main Street Players have sometimes performed up to four shows per year.
“It’s really too many for a volunteer group of actors,” Cortopassi said. “And it can’t work if you don’t have people willing to step up.”
He said that aside from the nine actors in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, there are people on the sidelines who make the shows happen. One such person is the man who designs and builds sets for the shows, Dave Tucker.
“He’s done the last several shows,” Cortopassi said. “And it just proves that (community theater) would see a demise without people like him.”
Marcus Waye, a Fishers resident who drives to Zionsville to perform with the Off Main Street Players, is acting in the bee as William Barfay, an arrogant speller.
Aside from his role in the show, Waye is the board secretary for the Off Main Street Players.
“This is my group,” Waye said. “There are groups in Carmel and Fishers but this is my group. It’s just a lot of fun, and you get to meet a lot of great people. Plus, it’s an escape from your everyday life.”
Show times and tickets
Off Main Street Players will be performing The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee inside the Community Room of Zionsville Town Hall, at 8 p.m. May 16, 17, 23 and 24. A Sunday matinee of the show will be at 2 p.m., May 18. Tickets are $15.
For more information, visit www.offmainstreetplayers.org.
