The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is pretty innocuous.  There's nothing whatsoever sexual in nature in the show.  There's just the one set, the Spelling Bee, so there's no opportunity for canoodling or other shenanigans.  You get the usual hopes and dreams songs from the participants plus some of the quirkiness surrounding kids who are really into spelling.  It's written in a way such that the genders of the characters aren't all that important and so can be swapped around as needed, which turns out to be helpful for productions in smaller high schools, where you're going to get plenty of girls auditioning but maybe just one or two boys willing to face the ridicule of doing musical theater.  Often, those boys will be the only out gay boys in the school which only discourages straight boys more, as they know they'd be labeled gay by association if they try out. I'd imagine these pressures are even more pronounced in conservative areas of the country.

Fizpez: Persnickety: The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is pretty innocuous.  There's nothing whatsoever sexual in nature in the show.  There's just the one set, the Spelling Bee, so there's no opportunity for canoodling or other shenanigans.  You get the usual hopes and dreams songs from the participants plus some of the quirkiness surrounding kids who are really into spelling.  It's written in a way such that the genders of the characters aren't all that important and so can be swapped around as needed, which turns out to be helpful for productions in smaller high schools, where you're going to get plenty of girls auditioning but maybe just one or two boys willing to face the ridicule of doing musical theater.  Often, those boys will be the only out gay boys in the school which only discourages straight boys more, as they know they'd be labeled gay by association if they try out. I'd imagine these pressures are even more pronounced in conservative areas of the country.

I actively encouraged my son/nephews to get involved in the play production - I believe it went something like this "You want a girlfriend, you're going to spend 20 hours a week with a room full of people that is 90% female - you will never have a better chance to a)make friends and b) make friends with girls and c) make friends with girls who might become "girlfriends"... because d) you SURE AS HELL are not going to find them playing Minecraft on your xbox at 2 am.

Exactly.  I joined band and chorus for the same reason.  I can't act for crap so being in a school play or musical was never in the cards for me, however I'd volunteer to do backstage stuff to have another excuse to hang around with the girls.  I'm not all that attractive, nor do I have any "game" whatsoever but I almost always had a girlfriend in high school - I thought I'd figured out secret of the universe!  Of course, then American Pie came out and now everyone knows.