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Lincoln High Alum Brings Professional Polish to School's Latest Stage Production

campellsvilleky.com

This (Thursday, 2/25/16) is opening night for the latest musical production from the Fine Arts Department at Tallahassee’s Lincoln High School. The students have some high-powered help, including a Lincoln alum who has years of experience acting in Broadway productions.

Erika MacLeod has spent more than twenty years away from Tallahassee, most recently plying her trade on New York City’s Great White Way.

“I left in ’93; end of ’93 and I just got back last year,” she said.

Now raising a family in her Tallahassee hometown, MacLeod was astonished at what’s been done to the auditorium performance space at her high school alma mater.

“We didn’t have that when I was there!” she exclaimed. “It’s amazing and Scott Leaman is running the whole arts program over there and he is just…with those kids. They love him and he is delightful and he just wants to make it so big and wonderful and he’s just great.”

Now MacLeod has teamed up with Leaman, as well as F.S.U. theatre alumnus and Lincoln Theatre Director Mark Marple, to bring the musical comedy “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” to life on the Lincoln High stage.

“It is delightfully funny!” MacLeod said. “It is one of those barrel-laughing funny things. It’s just about a spelling bee, but the creativity of the script and the music alone is worth going to see it. But then what the kids bring to it, it’s really like going to see a professional show. It is delightful!”

The show, which originally ran off-off Broadway, went on to win a Tony Award. And MacLeod thinks that honor was well deserved.

“It’s so quirky. One of the kids does his spelling with his foot. His foot is magical and tells him things. One of them has a cape and thinks he’s a superhero. It’s just hilarious and is the epitome of what we classify as nerdy, nerdy people, but they’ve taken it to character levels that are just hilarious.”

But MacLeod said it’s the Lincoln High students who truly infuse the production with the magic it needs to take flite on stage.

“And the voices and the dedication to the characters…I came in to choreograph and they pick it up like that. It’s just nothing to them and they’re doing great.”

That’s a powerful tribute with an artist who’s worked with some of the very best in the business. “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” opens tonight in Tallahassee’s Lincoln High School Auditorium. Doors open at 7:00 with the show starting at 7:30. There are also Friday and Saturday night performances.