“When Jesus found out the myrrh was regifted, he called the Wise Men ‘Jews.'”

That joke is not the latest comment to get Mel Gibson into trouble, but rather a line from Mask & Bauble’s most recent production, “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” a musical that depicts six elementary school kids as they compete for first prize at their county spelling bee. While the characters might be still learning their multiplication tables, the show’s audience is years out  of elementary age, as the play makes jokes about everything from religion to politics to gender expectations

The humor — some of which was written by Mask & Bauble’s own Joe Madsen (COL  ’14) who plays Vice Principal Douglas Panch — make you feel guilty about laughing, but not guilty enough to stop you. The cast has great chemistry, making each character’s eccentricities (one character uses his magical foot to spell out the words before saying them) even more hilarious. Producer Ellison Roberts (COL ’14) writes in her note to the audience, “I believe our quirky harmony is also in the truest spirit of ‘The 25thAnnual Putnam County Spelling Bee.'”

Despite the quirky and sometimes ridiculous nature of the show (a certain religious figure makes a personal appearance towards the end) the characters also experience moments of revelation and sadness that occur in every young child’s life. One song, which repeats the line, “Life is random and unfair,” will remind anyone of the first time they whined about life’s unfairness.

Olive Ostrovsky, who is played by Molly Roach (COL ’15), feels this injustice of life  more deeply than anyone else in the show. Olive, whose mother has recently left her and her father,  spends the whole bee waiting for her dad to come watch her compete. In one of the final songs, Olive imagines both of her parents at the bee telling her they love her. The heartbreaking sentiment and Roach’s amazing singing voice make the song the show’s most poignant moment.

The musical also shows the pressures these students put on themselves to win the bee, which forces one contestant’s parent to resort to cheating. The director of the show, Beni El-Dalati (COL ’12), believes the competitive atmosphere of the bee has a strong connection to the undergraduate experience at Georgetown. “We are these kids, with the spelling bees and the geography bees,” he said.

In this way, the characters in the show manage to bring out both the little kid and the adult who forgets some of these most basic truths in all of us. With this talented case, the audience sees the transformation that comes with growing up. As El-Dalati writes to the audience, the final lines of “The25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee demonstrate this best”: “we grew up undeniably, and look our hair is thinning/ our past caught up with us at last.”

Tickets for “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” are $8 for students and $12 for other audience members. The show will be playing at Poulton Hall this Thursday, Feb. 16 through Sunday, Feb. 19 and next Wednesday, Feb. 22 through Saturday, Feb. 25.