{"id":303931,"date":"2026-07-23T17:45:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T17:45:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/303931\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T17:45:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T17:45:13","slug":"kevin-mchale-sets-final-bow-in-spelling-bee-off-broadway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/303931\/","title":{"rendered":"Kevin McHale Sets Final Bow in Spelling Bee Off-Broadway"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kevin McHale has set a final bow in the Off-Broadway revival of William Finn<\/a> and Rachel Sheinkin<\/a>‘s\u00a0The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee<\/a> at New World Stages for August 16. The production has not yet revealed who will succeed McHale in the role of William Barf\u00e9e.<\/p>\n

McHale’s departure is part of a lot of summer cast changes at the production, which welcomed Laura Marano as\u00a0Logainne Schwartzandgrubenierre last month. Next up, Tony-winning stage and screen star Alex Newell<\/a> (Glee,\u00a0Shucked<\/a>)\u00a0will succeed Lilli Cooper<\/a> as Rona Lisa Peretti beginning August 7, and Nina White<\/a> will succeed Jasmine Amy Rogers<\/a> as Olive Ostrovsky beginning August 10.<\/p>\n

The current company also includes\u00a0Jon Cryer<\/a> as Vice Principal Douglas Panch, Justin Cooley<\/a> (Kimberly Akimbo<\/a>) as Leaf Coneybear, Philippe Arroyo<\/a> (& Juliet<\/a>) as Chip Tolentino, Leana Rae Concepcion<\/a> (Merrily We Roll Along<\/a>) as Marcy Park, and Matt Manuel<\/a> (Ain’t Too Proud) as Mitch Mahoney.\u00a0Understudies Brandon L. Armstrong, Jahbril Cook, DeMarius Copes, Vanessa Magula, Emily Nicole Rudolph, and Cecilia Snow\u00a0round 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) is directing. See what critics had to say about the revival, which opened November 16, 2025, here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Also back from the earlier\u00a0Kennedy 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":"Kevin McHale has set a final bow in the Off-Broadway revival of William Finn and Rachel Sheinkin‘s\u00a0The 25th…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":303932,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-303931","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\/303931","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=303931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}