This year’s musical, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, has forever changed the lives of its cast. It brought together ten Berkshire students, from freshmen like me to seniors like Ellis DeMars ’21, in a way we never thought before. 

 COVID-19, the pandemic that stopped our world in its tracks, still affects us over a year later. And to say the least, a lot of theater magic has gone into this. New student and freshman Jojo Binkerhoff ’24 said in a recent interview that just this experience and getting together with the cast has been amazing and also very humbling. 

 Others, like Zeynep Kara ’23, who is a returning sophomore, were inspired by last year’s performance of Rent and are grateful to be able to do a musical this year. Veterans like Leo Yang ’22 who has stage managed and been in past musicals are happy to be in person doing the musical with such a diverse cast in age and experience having such a fun time. 

 Other veterans to the Berkshire Theater like Justine Rabley ’23 say that many things are different. For starters, this year’s musical is definitely not Rent, the musical production put on last year, especially because certain on-stage experiences like being to touch people or sing aren’t able to happen.

 Still, we as a cast were excited to bring you all The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee live on Thursday February 18, Friday the 20th, and Saturday the 21st. We knew that you would love it!