local cast

Set in a high school gym and hosted, for the ninth year, by a former Putnam County Spelling Bee winner, Rona Lisa Peretti (Jenn Heim), this year’s contest features Vice Principal Douglas Panch (Cameron Tolbert), a charm-challenged administrator of definitions and word pronouncer. Contestants include last year’s winner, Chip Tolentino (Zephyr Delgado), and a newcomer to the event, Olive Ostrovsky (Athena), who does not have money for the entrance fee. Other entrants fill a typical adolescent scope of the peculiar, the belligerent, and the withdrawn.