An All-Star Quad Cities Cast With Two Swings Will Present “Spelling Bee” Moline
A kind of theater All-Star Game for the Quad Cities will be on display the next two weekends, with a new Quad-City Music Guild production of “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” at Prospect Park, 1584 34th Ave., Moline.
Performances will be Aug. 7-9, and 13-16, 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, and 2 p.m. Sundays.
Winner of the Tony and the Drama Desk Awards for Best Book, “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” (premiered off-Broadway in 2005, and done at Moline’s Black Box Theatre in December 2017) has charmed audiences across the country with its effortless wit and humor. Featuring a fast-paced, wildly funny and touching book by Rachel Sheinkin and a truly fresh and vibrant score by William Finn, this bee is one unforgettable experience, according to Guild.
Lauren VanSpeybroeck in the new Guild production.
An eclectic group of six mid-pubescents vie for the spelling championship of a lifetime. While candidly disclosing hilarious and touching stories from their home lives, the tweens spell their way through a series of (potentially made-up) words, hoping never to hear the soul-crushing, pout-inducing, life un-affirming “ding” of the bell that signals a spelling mistake. Six spellers enter; one speller leaves a champion! At least the losers get a juice box.
The stacked Music Guild cast features (character name first):
- Chip Tolentino – Brian Heffernan
- Logainne Schwartzandgrubenierre – Adrienne Jane Evans (played by Joie Stoefen for the 8/15 performance)
- Leaf Coneybear – Jack Bevans (played by Eli Swailes for the 8/15 performance)
- William Barfee – Luke Vermeire
- Marcy Park – Megan Warren
- Olive Ostrovsky – Lauren VanSpeybroeck
- Rona Lisa Peretti – Jess Fah
- Douglas Panch – Jeremy Mahr
- Mitch Mahoney – Casey Scott
“We had a fantastic turnout for auditions. We easily could have cast this show 3 or 4 times over,” director Mike Turczynski said Tuesday before rehearsal. “It was a good problem to have, but lining up everybody that we saw through and putting these specific people together on a list just lit up the room and everybody was so excited. And they’ve all been a dream to work with. I’ve worked with many of them before in various capacities, but to have them all in one place and working together is really cool.”
Megan Warren in the new Guild production.
He teaches in the theater department at Augustana College, and is employing departing professor Shelley Cooper’s practice of using “swings,” or performers who could step in for multiple roles. For one performance, Aug. 15, rising Augie sophomore Eli Swailes will play Leaf, and 2024 Drake alum Joie Stoefen will play Logainne.
“The reason I am doing that is last year, and in several productions I’ve been involved in, we’ve had moments where principal characters cannot go on for whatever reason, either it be in the rehearsal process or in the show itself,” Turczynski said. “And there’s always a mad scramble to get someone on the directing staff or get one of the ensemble members or somebody up to speed to be able to perform the show or to keep the rehearsal running or whatever it might be. Working with Shelley Cooper at Augustana, she always employs swings in some way, shape, or form to kind of help alleviate that. And due to our incredible turnout as well for auditions, Joie and Eli really stood out as two young up-and-coming performers who definitely could take on any of these roles.”
The cast of “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” at Music Guild in Moline, running Aug. 7-16.
“In an effort to both be able to give them some more eyes on them and some more opportunity, but also to fill the need of kind of a backup plan for us. And then because of all of the incredible amount of hard work the two of them are doing covering as many parts as they are,” he said, noting they each have covered three roles (meaning they have to know all the lines for all their parts). “I wanted to give them a chance to have a public audience and to do that. It’s really kind of a cool experience, I think, for everybody.”
“It’s a great learning experience for them. I mean, being an educator in theater, I always want to look for the educational opportunities too,” Turczynski said.
An untraditional musical
“Spelling Bee” also is a true ensemble show, without a real standout lead role, the director said.
“It’s not a traditional musical where like the principal role has 8 songs and 2 full-page monologues,” Turczynski said. “While there’s a lot of interconnectedness, each character kind of gets a main scene, and a song or two, and then there’s the group numbers, which don’t change a whole lot, just where you’re standing.”
“It does require a lot of work on their effort, both in the rehearsal room but also outside of the rehearsal room, to be able to rep the music and learn the lines and all that kind of stuff,” he said of Stoefen and Swailes. “And you can tell when they have to like kind of switch brain modes to like go into a different character or whatever when we’re covering stuff. But I’ve been so incredibly impressed by their work ethic. And I’ve been so incredibly impressed by the cast and their graciousness and willingness to cheer these two on in the process as well.”
Jack Bevans goes airborne during Music Guild’s new production of “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.”
Even though the students the adult actors are playing are supposed to be around 12 years old, they’re very believable in the roles, the director said.
“The cast as a whole has done a wonderful job in playing with their physicality and their embodiment of finding their inner child,” Turczynski said. “All the characters are written so specifically that I think they’re all having a lot of fun bringing to life their own little iterations of themselves in many ways.”
“A lot of them are pulling from their own childhood, and a lot of them are pulling from just their own mannerisms and just kind of amping it up,” he said. “I don’t know that age has mattered at all. You know, our oldest child, I guess, is in their 30s, and our youngest is 19, so the age discrepancy really isn’t even that much.”
“Spelling Bee” has become so popular since it’s such a relatable story, and everyone can see themselves in one of the characters, Turczynski said.
“This is a show that roots for the underdog a lot. And everybody loves that story,” he said. “But the best part is that every character is an underdog in this, at least when we talk about the kids. Very rarely are the kids who are winning the spelling bee the most popular kids at school, right? They were all somewhat probably quirky or nerdy or a little spastic or a little goody-two-shoes or whatever it might be. And so I think we see a lot of ourselves in these kids.
“I was one of these kids. I wasn’t great at spelling, but I was still a nerd doing a bunch of other stuff,” Turczynski, who went to Seton Catholic and Alleman growing up in the QC, before majoring in theater at University of Iowa. “And so I think there’s even little bits and pieces of me in all of them in some ways, of the neurodivergency and there’s a rough home life in there. There is like, they’re human, even though they’re 10 or 11 or 12, they’re human.
“And we all had to go through that stuff when we were kids too. And I think being able to kind of relive that through their eyes is really rewarding, but also really charming all at the same time,” he said.
Hooked since high school
Turczynski first got into theater in high school, his sophomore year he was interested in a girl who tried out for the play, “The Mouse That Roared.”
“She tried out for the play and said you should try out for the play, and so I tried out for the play. I didn’t get the girl but got a part,” he said.
He’s worked at Augie doing lighting and sound design since 2017, and has been technical director, teaching those areas, since 2021.
His Augie colleague Robert Elfline (a college piano professor), is “Spelling Bee” music director.
“It’s really kind of fun to cross the departments, music and theater. We work a lot together, but we don’t see each other a lot, being in different buildings now,” Turczynski said. “It’s nice to kind of have this Augie colleague outside of Augie, and we get to let our hair down a little bit and have fun and make some art together. And musically, he is such a phenomenal — not just musician, but also teacher. And to hear how he talks about music to the cast has been really, really awesome. Taught me stuff. He has led this cast in terrific ways and is making them all sound really, really good.”
The spellers in the Music Guild “Spelling Bee” are played by (L-R) Megan Warren, Jack Bevans, Brian Heffernan, Luke Vermiere, Lauren VanSpeybroeck, and Adrienne Jane Evans.
The first Guild show Turczynski directed was “Young Frankenstein” in 2015, and his favorite Augustana show working with Cooper was “The Threepenny Opera” in 2022. He loves being involved in many aspects of theater, which drew him into directing.
“I’ve always considered myself a jack-of-all-trades type of artist. I think the newer term is multi-hyphenate. I hear that a lot with those students,” Turczynski said. “Not any one part of theater fulfills everything in my soul. There are shows that I would never want to act in but would love to direct. There are shows that I would never want to direct but would love to design. It all kind of depends on the context and the kind of show.”
With directing, he said, “If I don’t have that really good, clear initial vision, or I don’t have that really good push and motivation, I’d rather just design it, or I’d rather just maybe watch it, or those sorts of things. So directing is fun because I get to take all of those multi-hyphenate skill sets. I know how to talk lighting and sound to the lighting and sound people. I know how to ask for things specifically if I need to be able to ask for them specifically, but on the actor side, I still get to connect on the storytelling and the moment-making.”
“I’m very much a director who enjoys making the picture and then allowing the actors to do the work to fill it in,” Turczynski said. “That’s what I’ve always found really rewarding is just bringing all of my knowledge of all of the shows I’ve ever done. And because of my past, I’ve worked with a lot of great directors. I’ve learned a lot of great things, and being able to bring that to the table is fun.”
Improvising in the show
He’s also really enjoying working with Jeremy Mahr in “Spelling Bee,” who is well-known for both doing drama and comedy, including improv at ComedySportz. Mahr plays the vice principal and word pronouncer, alongside Jess Fah as the bee moderator, and the top realtor in Putnam County.
“We were pleasantly shocked when he walked through the door for auditions because he’s not necessarily a musical theater actor, or at least not traditionally,” Turczynski said. “I don’t know fully what his pedigree is in that, but I’ve never associated Jeremy with the musical theater side of the theater community. I’ve seen him in a ton of stuff over the years.”
“This show has so many improv elements to it that I’m comfortable talking about comedy with people and helping teach comedy, but having another person who is so dedicated to the craft and so knowledgeable to it was amazing,” he said, noting that they have four “guest spellers” from the audience come on stage each performance.
Jess Fah and Jeremy Mahr in “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” at Music Guild, Moline, Aug. 7 to 16.
“Jeremy has done a lot of work on the back end to find a great list of words with really funny definitions and sentences for those guest spellers,” Turczynski said. “Because that’s not stuff that’s written in the script.
“So between him and Jess Fah, she has to do a fair amount of improvising too. They have to introduce these people, give a quip about them, give them a word and definition, all that stuff,” he added. “Be paying attention to actually if they spell it right or wrong because that changes the dynamic of how the show— and so they’re kind of the captains of the ship in a lot of ways. At least in that first act when we have all the guest spellers on stage, because we had to sit down for a whole rehearsal and kind of do an if-then, if this then that kind of breakdown of, well, if they get it right then we have to do this and if they get it wrong then we have to do this.”
“It still requires a good amount of staying locked in together and really making sure that everybody’s on the same page,” the director said. “And that’s really why Jeremy’s been a treasure. And between him and Jess, they really do lead the show and tell us exactly what we need to know when we need to know it.”
“Spelling Bee” tickets are $20 for adults; $15 for kids 12 and under, available by calling the box office at 309-762-6610 or by visiting the QCMG website, www.qcmusicguild.com.
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