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Buzz has been building for weeks that the much-loved musical The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, which depicts an orthographic competition among anguished adolescent nerds, would be returning to New York City for a 20th-anniversary revival. Now it's official: Time Out has learned that the funny and touching 2005 tuner will be back for a spell at Off Broadway's New World Stages, starting this November, in what is billed as a 14-week limited engagement.
The original production of Spelling Bee won two Tony Awards, for Rachel Sheinkin's book and featured actor Dan Fogler, and helped launch the careers of actors including Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Celia Keenan-Bolger, Jose Llana, Derrick Baskin and Lisa Howard. News of the upcoming revival comes at a bittersweet moment for fans of the show: Its brilliantly idiosyncratic composer, William Finn (Falsettos), died in April at the age of 73, and six Broadway theaters—the Gershwin, the Broadhurst, the Walter Kerr, the Hayes, Circle in the Square and the Vivian Beaumont—will be honoring him by dimming their lights at 6:45pm tomorrow (June 17).
Hopes for a Spelling Bee revival have been growing since last fall's production of the show at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., which was directed and choreographed by Danny Mefford. The New World Stages version will also be overseen by Mefford, who is best known as the choreographer of musicals including Broadway's Dear Evan Hansen, Fun Home and Kimberly Akimbo; this will mark his Off Broadway debut as a director. Although the NYC production is not being called a transfer, it features most of the same creative team as the Kennedy Center: Emily Rebholz (costumes), David Weiner (lighting), Haley Parcher (sound) and Geoff Josselson (casting), now joined by scenic designer Teresa L. Williams and music supervisor Carmel Dean.
The Kennedy Center production had a notably star-studded cast: Beanie Feldstein, Kevin McHale, Taran Killam, Bonnie Milligan, Noah Galvin, Alex Joseph Grayson, Philippe Arroyo, Nina White and Leana Rae Concepcion. It is unclear whether any of those actors will reprise their roles in the New World Stages staging, whose casting has not yet been announced.
The 25th Annual Putnam Spelling Bee will begin previews at New World Stages on November 7, 2025, and open officially on November 17. It is scheduled to run through February 15, 2026. Tickets will go on sale in July; for more early access to tickets, sign up at the production's website, SpellingBeeNYC.com. (You can also follow it at @spellingbeenyc on all social channels.)
