The Sewickley Academy Senior School is prepared to bring audiences much-deserved laughs with the spring musical “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.”

The show, which debuted on Broadway in 2005, follows several young characters who are contestants at a regional spelling competition as they vie for first place. Sewickley Academy’s director of theater arts, Joe Jackson, hopes to deliver some levity during a socially distant year.

“Overall, we’re just really excited to be able to do live theater. I hope that people come out and support it and laugh a lot,” he said.

The production, which will be performed outside in Sewickley Academy’s Melodia Plaza, will do its best to stay true to the source material while making necessary adjustments because of the pandemic.

“Everything about it we’ve had to do because of covid-19,” Jackson said.

They even had to change which show they were planning to perform, to adjust for an outdoor venue. “Spelling Bee” is a straightforward show with minimal set changes and interaction between the actors, making it as pandemic-proof as possible.

While “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” wasn’t a blockbuster Broadway hit, its original run did garner success, as well as two Tony Award nominations. Jackson sees it as something of a niche classic with a cult following at this point.

“People who know it love it, but not everyone knows it,” he said.

There is another fun element to the show that will get the community involved and closer together: “Spelling Bee” has a heavy element of audience participation — several audience members participate in the spelling bee portion of the show.

“Because of the pandemic, we have to be very mindful of who we have onstage. We’re actually creating a list of Sewickley Academy community people, and we’re going to reach out to them as possible audience volunteers,” Jackson said.

Such a comedy-oriented show, especially one with unpredictable audience participation, means the students who will be acting in “Spelling Bee” are learning to improvise.

“We are having so much fun. We’re playing improv games, laughing, just to get them into that mindset of coming up with things, being quick on your feet. Improv is a really valuable skill to have in a comedy,” Jackson said.

Such a funny and different show will be a welcome respite for both the actors and the audience after a tumultuous school year. The difficulties of making covid-safe outdoor theater have forced unique, creative solutions for Sewickley Academy.

In the fall, students successfully mounted a performance of “War of the Worlds” using tweaked technical stagecraft for social distancing.

“Knowing that we had that kind of success, we could move into this show with some confidence,” Jackson said.

Performances will follow recommended covid-19 protocols for the actors and the audience. The actors will be masked, as will the audience, and they will be seated in socially distant pods in the outdoor plaza space.

This also means hoping for good weather. The evening performances will begin at 7 p.m. to optimize the use of ambient light.

“One of the science teachers at the high school was able to tell us exactly where the sun would be at 7 o’clock on the nights we want to do it,” Jackson said.

The show will go on at 7 p.m. May 27-29, with an additional matinee performance at 2 p.m. May 30. If rain does become an issue, there will be makeup dates the following weekend.

“Spelling Bee” will run for about 90 minutes, and there is no intermission.

Tickets for the show are free, but registration is requested at sewickley.org/tickets. Because the plaza can safely seat a certain amount of people, Jackson notes it is important to know how many audience members to expect at any given performance.

Most of all, he is hoping that the Sewickley Academy community will come out and laugh.

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