The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee
By William Finn (music and lyrics) and Rachel Sheinkin (book)
Director: Gina Kaufmann
Nov. 4 at 10 a.m.
The Rand Theater
Recommended for ages 13 and up due to adult humor and situations, and references to sex
Can you spell J-O-Y? Finn and Sheinkin’s musical follows a motley crew of spelling bee competitors in a delightful story that is by turns sweet, poignant, and laugh-out-loud funny. As they navigate a gauntlet of words, the tweens candidly reveal hilarious and heartfelt stories from their home lives, each hoping to avoid the soul-crushing, pout-inducing, life-unaffirming ding of the bell that signals a misspelling. Buy a ticket and brush up on your spelling — intrepid audience members can volunteer for the spelling bee hot seat at every performance!
The Moors
By Jen Silverman
Director: Cordelia Winter Dwyer
Costume Designer: Hanh Rioux
Dec. 10 at 10 a.m.
The Curtain Theater
Recommended for ages 16 and up due to adult situations, violence and gore, and references to sexual assault
A hapless governess, a mysterious hero, scheming siblings, and the bleak setting of the windswept countryside: Jen Silverman’s The Moors has all the trapping of the best gothic yarns written by folks like the Brontë sisters. At once satire and homage to this source material, this dark and funny play also introduces us to two surprisingly literate animals and their star-crossed love. This richly weird set-up offers a unique lens to explore the things that motivate us: love, power, the search for connection.
Between Tattoos: An Autobiomythography by Iya Awotunde Judyie Ella Al-Bilali
Directing and Dramaturgy: Jen Onopa and Tatiana M. Rodriguez
Dramaturg: Priscilla Maria Page
Feb. 24 at 10 a.m.
The Curtain Theater
Age recommendation TBA
Between Tattoos: An Autobiomythography is a powerfully poetic memoir and a lyrical treatise on art and life written by Iya Awotunde Judyie Ella Al-Bilali, the first Black woman to hold the title of Full Professor in the Department of Theater. A beloved member of our department, she completed this book near the end of her life. The complete text serves as both a chronicle and a guide for others to live artfully and authentically. In her final months, she began to view the work as a theater piece and this production honors her vision. The collaborators and mentees with whom she devised theater present a newly created work combining the threads of theater, music, dance, and the Theatrical Jazz aesthetic that Al-Bilali embodied.
Appropriate
By Branden Jacobs-Jenkins
Director: Kyle Boatwright
April 14 at 10 a.m.
The Rand Theater
Recommended for ages 14 and up due to depictions of racism, violence, sexual content, addiction & substance abuse.
When the patriarch of the Lafayette family passes away, his adult children return to his once glorious Arkansas plantation with their families to settle his estate. Sifting through their father’s belongings and their own messy relationships, they unearth a shocking and unsettling past, learning more than they’d ever cared to know about their father, their legacy, and themselves. In a Tony-winning script that highlights both the hilarity and the horror of family dynamics, playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins asks a question America itself must reckon with: how do we appropriately move forward while carrying the enormity of a deeply complex past?
Romeo and Juliet
By William Shakespeare
Director: Cordelia Winter Dwyer
Location and performance dates TBA
Recommended for ages 13 and up due to depictions of violence and death, sensuality
Popular culture sees of Romeo and Juliet as a love story, as a tragedy about two young lovers brought to a sorrowful end by a family feud.
Director Cordelia Winter Dwyer sees something else in the story: It’s about what happens when the voices of the young are ignored, when oppression and inherited violence consume their future. Shakespeare shows us a society that cannot listen to its children, and the devastating cost of that failure.
This production will be performed out of doors with minimal modern technology, bringing us face to face with the play’s timeless message.
Interested in bringing your group? Fill out this form to make a tentative reservation.
Tickets for our matinees are $7/student. Chaperones are free but we ask that you provide a total number for seating purposes.
Post-show Q&As are offered to all groups free of charges. Study guides and/or other supporting materials such as lobby displays or online content are available for most productions and are free to access.
Pre-show workshops or backstage tours can be requested and may be available pending safety concerns and crowd size.
Many of our productions deal with themes that may not be suitable for all ages. Our recommendations are meant to offer a rough guideline to help you decide whether a show is right for your group, but each student's life experience and maturity may differ. If you have questions about the suitability of a particular show for your student group, please contact us.
Student Matinee Study Guides
Our dramaturgs usually prepare Study Guides for the shows offering Student Matinees to local middle and high schools. Here is our list of past study guides, which we offer free for your use — please credit where appropriate.