Can you spell ‘teen angst’?

Jennifer Simard may not be a spelling champion in real life. She can even remember her disappointment at misspelling the word “chef” in her sixth-grade spelling bee.

Fortunately, her real talent is acting. Simard stars as a former spelling champ in “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.”

The Tony Award-winning musical comedy will soon make a stop at the Orange County Performing Arts Center’s Segerstrom Hall. The show opens Tuesday and runs through the end of the year.

The interactive musical is arranged as an actual spelling bee, focusing on six pubescent outsiders, all played by adults, as they vie for the title of county champion in the hopes of making it to the national bee.

Each competitor struggles with adolescence — one is the daughter of two gay men, another has a mucus membrane disorder, and Leaf Coneybear, played by Michael Zahler, desperately craves social interaction as a home-schooled sibling of six.

Zahler is certain that there is something for everyone in the show, and no audience member will leave without identifying with at least one character.

“The show has something to say about America, about the pressure people place on children to succeed,” Zahler said. “It’s about competition, fear, adolescence and really finding out who you are.”

Portraying Coneybear’s opposite, Simard plays the comedic role of Rona Lisa Peretti, a type A, successful real estate agent who has hosted the Putnam County Spelling Bee for nine consecutive years and is unable to detach from her past as a former championship speller. But ultimately, she is confronted with the central message of the musical: Winning isn’t everything, and losing doesn’t necessarily make you a loser.

As the bee’s host, it is her responsibility to creatively introduce volunteers from the audience who are chosen to participate in the competition on stage. Four audience members are chosen for each performance based on a pre-show questionnaire-and-interview process in the theater lobby.

One of three adults on stage, Vice Principal Douglas Panch, played by James Kall, helps select the volunteer contestants, along with a new set of words to stump them.

Originally based on an improv play, the show got its start in 2004 as an off-Broadway production. Under the direction of James Lapine, famed for his work as director and book-writer for the Broadway musical “Into the Woods,” the show made it to the Square Theatre on Broadway and is now on its first national tour.

The show features music and lyrics by William Finn and a book, the unsung dialogue, by Rachel Sheinkin, both Tony Award-winners.

Simard and Zahler, poised to make their ninth stop along the tour, agree that the show offers audiences a rare theater experience, one that is funny and poignant.

“I can say, wholeheartedly, that I would come to see it … even if I wasn’t in it,” Simard said.

IF YOU GO

WHAT: “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee”

WHERE: The Orange County Performing Arts Center’s Segerstrom Hall

WHEN: Tuesday through Friday at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, Saturday at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Saturday, and Sunday at 1 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. Sunday, from Dec. 19 to Dec. 31

COST: Tickets are $20 to $70. Student rush tickets will be available one hour before every performance for $20. A valid student ID is required at time of purchase, tickets must be paid for with in cash, and rush tickets are limited to one per person.

INFO: (714) 556-2787 or www.ocpac.org. Students are advised to call for availability.