I love seeing people turn their weaknesses into strengths, don't you? Nothing makes me want to stand up and cheer more than watching an underdog use unique qualities to get ahead. That's a consistent theme in this production, beginning with the theater company that's staging it.

In the past, Pinnacle Acting Company's greatest weakness has been its sets. This time, instead of trying to make an auditorium look like a posh living room on a shoestring budget, they staged a play that takes place in an auditorium. Of course, it worked beautifully -- the Midvale Performing Arts Center is exactly the kind of room where a spelling bee would be staged.

Lighting has sometimes been a weakness for the company as well, but this time lighting designer Nicolas Murphy added an extra dimension by keeping the house lights up for scenes in which the actors address the audience, and using a spotlight for flashback scenes. The timing of these effects was sharp, helped keep the action clear, and made us feel like part of the show.

Oh, and there was an orchestra! While hidden behind a the curtain for most of the production, there was a cellist, flutist, keyboard player, two reed players and three percussionists who supplied the instrumentation.

This was the first musical I've seen from Pinnacle. While the vocal stylings of the cast on Feb. 6 didn't compare to those of say, the Broadway touring company I saw performing "Avenue Q" at the Capitol Theatre the following evening, there were some nice moments, particularly the harmonizing as the Pinnacle performers sang "goodbye" to each contestant who was disqualified.

The cast was an exciting group of some of Salt Lake professional theater's most entertaining actors, with a few talented BYU students thrown into the mix.

I was distracted more than once near the beginning of the production by marveling over the fact that the mohawk-and-combat-boot-wearing comfort counselor, Mitch Mahoney, was being played by PAC's artistic director, Jared Larkin. It's even funnier to watch a guy with facial piercings hand out juice boxes and hugs when you know how clean-cut he normally looks. Larkin's voice, by the way, was a standout; he should sing more often.

Shannon Musgrave played the overachieving Marcy Park, and her dancing was even more charming than it was when she played Hattie the Spotted Dog at Salt Lake Acting Company. She had a lot of poise and polish as she twirled around the stage; choreographer Paul Winkelman did fine work.

As the audience members had entered the room, we were asked to sign up to participate in the spelling bee, which led to several people being called up onstage to compete with the cast members, resulting in some excellent improv. I thought the best humor in the show was when Mark Fossen, who played Vice Principal Panch, used the spelling words in a sentence for the contestants. He had just the right degree of deadpan while giving examples like, "Fandango: I see a little silhouetto of a man, scaramouch, scaramouch, will you do the fandango?"

Tamara Howell found the right note of over-enthusiasm as former-spelling-champ-turned officiator Rona Lisa Peretti. Phaidra Atkinson was adorable and had a sweet singing voice as she played young Logainne Schwartzandgrubenierre. Dustin Bolt had a good gee-whiz quality as Leaf Coneybear, whose ability to spell words seemed to be a form of Tourette's Syndrome -- and he had an even better air of suave over-protectiveness when he played one of Logainne's two fathers. Zachary Hess was the perfect wheezy know-it-all as William Barfee. And Benjamin Roeling was a crackup when he sang "My Unfortunate Erection."

But it was Alyssa Simmons, who played Olive Ostovsky, who gave the show its true heart. As the girl who kept waiting for her father to arrive, her belief in love and kindness was inspiring. The morals of the story are that there's a place where everyone belongs; that misfits can find love too; and sometimes when you lose, you win.

This is work that director Kirt Bateman should be proud of.