Spelling bees.

Back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, they were certainly having a moment.

They were the topic of an Oscar-nominated documentary , the Scripps National Spelling Bee was regularly televised on ESPN, and every year it seemed some odd tic or quirky personality would go viral – or what passed for viral at the time. Remember the kid who fainted and, quite dramatically, stood right up and correctly spelled his word like nothing had happened ? I do. And, of course, spelling bees made it to the big screen with the 2006 film Akeelah and the Bee .

Now, almost 20 years later, Cheryl L. West’s 2015 stage adaptation of writer-director Doug Atchison’s film is serving as The Ensemble Theatre ’s season opener, and the question is, was it lightning in a bottle or does the story

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