{"id":284882,"date":"2026-07-02T14:51:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T14:51:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/284882\/"},"modified":"2026-07-02T14:51:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T14:51:08","slug":"photos-spelling-bee-says-h-e-l-l-o-to-laura-marano-and-fernell-hogan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/284882\/","title":{"rendered":"Photos: Spelling Bee Says H-E-L-L-O to Laura Marano and Fernell Hogan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Also soon\u00a0to join are Justin Cooley<\/a> returning as Leaf Coneybear, beginning July 22;\u00a0and\u00a0Nina White<\/a> as Olive Ostrovsky, beginning August 10.<\/p>\n

Understudies Brandon L. Armstrong, Jahbril Cook, DeMarius Copes, Vanessa Magula, Emily Nicole Rudolph, and Cecilia Snow round out the company. Casting is by Geoff Josselson.<\/p>\n

The multi-extended revival, which marks the 2005 musical’s 20th anniversary, is currently set to continue through September 6. Danny Mefford<\/a> (Kimberly Akimbo<\/a>) is directing. See what critics had to say about the revival, which opened November 16, 2025, here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Also back from the Kennedy Center run are costume designer Emily Rebholz<\/a>, lighting designer David Weiner<\/a>, and sound designer Haley Parcher<\/a>. New for the Off-Broadway creative team is scenic designer Teresa L. Williams. Carmel Dean<\/a> serves as music supervisor, with music direction by Elizabeth Doran<\/a> and general management by 321 Theatrical Management. Rachel Zucker is production stage manager.<\/p>\n

The musical, which premiered on Broadway in 2005 after an Off-Broadway run, features a Tony-winning book by Sheinkin (adapted from a play by Rebecca Feldman<\/a>) and music and lyrics by the late two-time Tony winner Finn. The work is set at a fictional middle school spelling bee, where a lovable band of misfits\u2014plus a few lucky audience members\u2014assemble to duke it out on their knowledge of word spellings and languages of origin. The show was a Best Musical nominee at the 2005 Tony Awards, winning for Sheinkin’s book and original cast member Dan Fogler<\/a>‘s featured performance.<\/p>\n

The Off-Broadway return is produced by Barbara Whitman<\/a>, Aaron Glick<\/a>, and Timothy Bloom<\/a>, with co-producers James L. Nederlander<\/a>, Nancy Nagel Gibbs<\/a>, Debra Martin Chase<\/a>, Rachel Sussman<\/a>, Patrick Catullo<\/a>, and Ryan Solomon<\/a>. The musical is presented by special arrangement with David Stone<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Also soon\u00a0to join are Justin Cooley returning as Leaf Coneybear, beginning July 22;\u00a0and\u00a0Nina White as Olive Ostrovsky, beginning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284883,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-284882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284882\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}