The show centers on a fictional spelling bee set in a geographically ambiguous Putnam Valley Middle School.

The 2005 Broadway production, directed by James Lapine and produced by David Stone, James L. Nederlander, Barbara Whitman, Patrick Catullo, Barrington Stage Company and Second Stage Theater, earned good reviews and box-office success and was nominated for six Tony Awards, winning two, including Best Book.

An unusual aspect of the show is that four real audience members are invited on stage to compete in the spelling bee alongside the six young characters.

Another amusing aspect of the show is that the official pronouncer, usually an improv comedian, provides ridiculous usage-in-a-sentence examples when asked to use words in a sentence.

Finn brought Rachel Sheinkin on board, and they worked together with Feldman to transform C-R-E-P-U-S-C-U-L-E into a scripted full-length musical.

Several cast members, Dan Fogler, Jay Reiss, and Sarah Saltzberg remained from C-R-E-P-U-S-C-U-L-E. Robb Sapp (later replaced by Jose Llana when Sapp moved on to Wicked), Dashiell Eaves (replaced by Derrick Baskin), Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Celia Keenan-Bolger (joined as Olive Ostrovsky in the summer), Lisa Howard, and Deborah S. Craig were added to the cast, and a full script was created.

[5] Spelling Bee premiered on Broadway at the Circle in the Square Theatre on April 15, 2005, and closed on January 20, 2008, after 1,136 performances and 21 previews.

[8] The musical was produced in San Francisco, California, at the Post Street Theatre opening on March 1, 2006, and closing on September 3, 2006.

[9] In Chicago the run began on April 11, 2006, at the Drury Lane Theatre, Water Tower Place, closing on March 25, 2007.

[12][13] The Equity U.S. National Tour began in Baltimore, Maryland at the Hippodrome Theatre on September 19, 2006, going through May 2007, visiting over 30 cities across the U.S.[14] From May 24 to June 17, 2007, the original Broadway cast reunited for a limited four-week run at the Wadsworth Theater in Los Angeles.

[17] In 2007, the first translated production opened in Seoul, South Korea, with all of the music and dialogue in Korean, but the words were spelled in English.

Spelling Bee was performed for the first time in Israel, with Hebrew subtitles in October 2012, at the AACI J-Town Playhouse theater in Jerusalem.

[23][24] Spelling Bee had an additional series of performances in September 2017 in Israel by the organization The Stage, at the Beit Yad leBanim theatre in Tel Aviv.

[25][26] The original Broadway cast of Spelling Bee reunited for a one-night only 10th anniversary concert at The Town Hall on July 6, 2015.

The concert was organized in tribute to original production stage manager Andrea "Spook" Testani-Gordon, who died from cancer the previous November.

Rona calls up four audience participants and requests to speak privately to Olive Ostrovsky, who has not yet paid the entrance fee.

After Olive reveals that her parents are not present and she arrived by bus, Rona decides to let the fee slide for the moment.

Panch attempts to disallow her from answering the phone, but she persuades Rona to take the call for her, leading her to learn that her father will miss the bee due to working longer than expected.

Olive congratulates Barfée, and each character reads a sentence or two about what they do in the years and decades after the main action of the play ends ("Finale").

A song entitled "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee Massacres the 12 Days of Christmas" was released online as a holiday track sung by the cast.

It reveals several different instances of events within the lives of the characters, such as Coneybear being given 2 right socks named "Phil", Olive discussing various places her dad forgets her at, Barfée ruling his sea anemone circus from his basement, Panch's urine laced with Ritalin, Rona's most recent boyfriend breaking up with her, Mitch ending up and making calls from prison, Logainne explaining her dads giving her stomach ulcers, Chip playing with his little league baseball team, and Marcy receiving the 7th book of Moses (which Logainne repeatedly objects to, claiming there's only 5) while fighting with her understudy who was taking her place because "Deborah [S. Craig, the regular Marcy actress] hurt her knee".

The registration form asks for name, occupation, hobbies, description of clothing, spelling ability, and age range.

Similarly, Chip is distracted by an attractive female audience member (or male in the adults-only version), contributing to a misspelling.

Past examples include: dystopia, cenacle, elephant, hemidemisemiquaver, homunculus, cow, jihad, lysergic acid diethylamide, castoreum and didgeridoo spelt by Rolf Harris.

[32] Charles Isherwood, in his review of the Broadway production for The New York Times, wrote "Most crucially, the affectionate performances of the six actors burdened with the daunting challenge of inhabiting young souls have not been stretched into grotesque shape by the move to a large theater... William Finn's score sounds plumper and more rewarding than it did Off Broadway.

And Mr. Finn's more wistful songs provide a nice sprinkling of sugar to complement the sass in Rachel Sheinkin's zinger-filled book... Mr. Lapine has sharpened all the musical's elements without betraying its appealing modesty."

"[35] The Cardinal School District denied their decision was made because the musical depicts two gay characters,[36] and confirmed that a "revised" version of the play would proceed as planned.