Mrs. Barth is beyond thrilled to be at the helm of the BHSDC for her second season. The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee will be a new show for BHSDC, and she is excited to share the production with audiences in the Knight Auditorium. Mrs. Barth would like to thank John Sullivan for his guidance and leadership during her high school years at BHS and for fostering her love with the magic of the theatre. After BHS, she traveled for a year with Up With People, earned a BFA in Musical Theatre from Emerson College, received her Actor's Equity card while performing for three years at Disney World in Orlando, FL, and earned her MM in Music Education from Boston University. Currently, Mrs. Barth teaches music and directs the chorus at Barnstable Intermediate School. When she's not in the theatre, you can find her having family fun with her husband and their two sons!

Matthew Kohler is a native to the Cape, former BHSDC member (Class of '08), and a teaching theatre artist year round. He is the current Technical and Facilities Director at Cape Cod Theatre Company | Harwich Junior Theater and the Stagecraft and Theatre Technologies Instructor at Cape Cod Community College. He is very excited to be a part of bringing The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee to the Knight stage and is grateful for the opportunity to give back to the drama club where he started his theatre career, as well as work with and teach such talented students here at the BHSDC.

As a Barnstable High School graduate, Julie Lariviere is a product of BHSDC, both on stage and as a pit musician. Her first production was as the bass player in the pit for You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown (1979), and her most recent was as the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz (2008). Her entire family (parents, siblings, children, nieces, and nephews) has a long tradition of participating in shows with both BHSDC and Barnstable Summer Family Theater. She is excited to carry on this tradition in a new role. She has been teaching math for a long time, and for the last 19 years here at BHS. She is grateful for the many talented people who have supported her during this crazy time. She is also thrilled to work with such a devoted and enthusiastic group of performers.

Kris has an extensive history with the BHSDC beginning way back in 1983 when as a naive freshman, she began her career as a shrieking head in the Annual Haunted House. She continues that role today as the Music Director for The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Between then and now, Kris appeared on stage in various roles with BHSDC, Barnstable Summer Family Theater, Barnstable Comedy Club, and the Cotuit Center for the Arts. In the summer of 1990, former BHSDC Artistic Director John Sullivan handed Kris the baton for the Velveteen Rabbit, and she’s waved it a lot ever since. Notable shows for which she has been music director include The Hobbit, The Wizard of Oz, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Mary Poppins, and The Reluctant Dragon. Kris is an elementary music teacher in the Mashpee Schools. When not teaching, you’ll find her running ninja warrior obstacle courses with her son, Isaac. She is excited to be back with so many BHSDC alums on the creative team!

This is Ms. Wyt’s seventh musical with the BHSDC, and is over the moon about working with this team of creatives for a second year in a row. When she first began her teaching career on Cape Cod, she remembers coming to BHSDC musicals and fell in love with Pippin, Joseph, Fiddler, Barnum, Seussical, Mame, Christmas Carol, On the Twentieth Century, Chicago, and so many more! She got to see Mrs. Barth share the stage with her mother, Lorraine Dunnett in The Music Man and Wizard of Oz (with a purple horse of a different color!) She believes in the joy of community that musical theater and just music making in general can bring to those who create it and who attend the performances. While in high school, Ms. Wytrwal was a proud percussionist in the Norwood High Mustang Marching Band, a piano player for their jazz band, a singer in their jazz choir and Madrigal Singers. She moved on to sing with the Ithaca College Jazz Choir, the Berklee College Vocal Jazz Ensemble, and MJ and the In Crowd. She has directed music for shows at Dennis-Yarmouth Regional High School, the Barnstable Comedy Club, the Cape Cod Theater Company, the Cotuit Center for the Arts, and taught at Summer Sounds for the Cape Cod Conservatory. Ms. Wytrwal teaches Piano Class, directs the choirs at Barnstable High School and recently became the 6-12 Music Department Head. She would like to thank all those who have supported all the efforts of the BHSDC for mounting this production of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee!

Rebecca Feldman is the conceiver of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee for which she won a Lucille Lortel Award, Drama Desk and Tony Nomination for Best Musical. She directed its world premiere at Barrington Stage Company in the summer of 2004. Rebecca is Associate Producer on TRANSPARENT, the MUSICAL FINALE and served as Staff Writer on the finale as well. She is currently developing an episodic drama with Big Kid Pictures, called LA COYOTE, which has been selected to the WeForShe’s 2019 Writeher List. She is an alumna of the Lincoln Center Director's Lab as well as the AFI Directing Workshop for Women where she won the Jean Firstenburg Award for Best Short. Her short films include, MY FIRST TIME DRIVING (AFI Jean Firstenburg Award, Best Short at Lake Arrowhead Film Fest, Best of Shorts at Outfest), A/V CLUB (TV Pilot, NYTVF), UBER ALICE (Woodstock Film Fest), DEAD CAT (Producer, Tribeca Film Fest) and IRVING (Official Selection Rhode Island Film Fest, Official Selection USA Film Fest, Ft. Lauderdale Film Fest, Atlanta Jewish Film Fest).

Mr. Finn is the writer and composer of Falsettos, for which he received two Tony Awards, Best Book of a Musical (with James Lapine) and Best Original Score. He has also written and composed In Trousers, March of the Falsettos and Falsettoland (Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Musical, two Los Angeles Drama Critic's Awards, two Drama Desk Awards, the Lucille Lortel Award, and Guggenheim Fellowship in Musical Composition). Mr. Finn wrote the lyrics to Graciela Daniele's Tango Apasionado (music by the great Astor Piazzolla) and, with Michael Starobin, the music to Lapine's version of The Winter's Tale. His musical, Romance in Hard Times, was presented at the Public Theater. Recently, he wrote Painting You for Love's Fire, a piece commissioned and performed bye the Acting Company, based on Shakepeare's sonnets. For television, Mr. Finn provided the music and lyrics for the Ace Award-winning HBO cartoon "Ira Sleeps Over," "Tom Thumb and Thumbelina," "Pokey Little Puppy's First Christmas," and, with Ellen Fitzhugh, two "Brave little Toaster" cartoons. Mr. Finn has written for Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, and The New Yorker. A graduate of Williams College where he was awarded the Hutchinson Fellowship for Musical Composition, Finn now teaches a weekly master class at the NYU Tisch Graduate Program in Musical Theatre Writing. His most recent projects include Elegies, A Song Cycle (Lincoln Center) and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee which ran on Broadway and has been produced nationally and internationally, as well.

Jay Reiss is playwright. He is a Julliard graduate and provided additional material to the book for THE 25TH ANNUAL PUTNAM COUNTY SPELLING BEE. Reiss appeared in the original workshops, Off-Broadway cast, and Broadway cast of the musical as Vice Principal Douglas Panch.

Broadway: The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (Tony, Drama Desk awards); Off Broadway: Striking 12 (Lucille Lortel nomination), Off-Off: Serenade. Regional: Guthrie, Little House on the Prairie; Center Theater Group, Sleeping Beauty Wakes(Los Angeles Ovation Award); London: Blood Drive. Residencies, fellowships, commissions include: Eugene O'Neill National Theater Center, Baryshnikov Dance Foundation, MacDowell Colony, Manhattan Theatre Club, Deaf West, McCarter Theatre, Playwrights Horizons. Rachel is a volunteer mentor for TDF's Open Doors program, a visiting instructor at Yale School of Drama, and adjunct faculty member of NYU's Graduate Musical Theater Writing Program.