The actor plays Vice Principal Douglas Panch in the musical
Credit: Joan Marcus
NEED TO KNOW
- Jon Cryer opens up to PEOPLE about the hardest part of joining The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee after starring in Two and a Half Men
- Cryer played Alan Harper in Two and a Half Men for 12 seasons, from 2003 to 2015
- Cryer says starring in Spelling Bee is “such a joyful experience”
Jon Cryer is back on the stage
Fifteen years after his last theatrical turn, the Emmy-winning actor joined the cast of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee last month as Vice Principal Douglas Panch, the word pronouncer and judge who guides the musical's six precocious pre-teens (played by adults) as they compete for the coveted title of county spelling champ.
Directed and choreographed by Danny Mefford (Kimberly Akimbo, Dear Evan Hansen), the award-winning revival of William Finn's hilarious comedy is playing Off-Broadway at New York's New World Stages. And while eight shows a week might be a challenge for some, Cryer, 61, shares to PEOPLE that his biggest obstacle in his return has had nothing to do with the show's schedule.
“The hardest part is I used to be on a TV show, and thus, just my presence can throw off the sort of balance of the show,” says Cryer, who starred for 12 seasons as Alan Harper on Two and a Half Men. “The show's an amazing ensemble show. And so what I did not want to do is throw off the balance of an already great show.”
Credit: Joan Marcus
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Cryer joined The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee as a replacement for Jason Kravits, who had been with the cast from the show's opening in November 2025. He explains the cast — which includes Glee alum Kevin McHale, Jasmine Amy Rogers, Lilli Cooper, Autumn Best and Justin Cooley — has been “incredible” and “lovely.”
“My job is really, how do I fit in?” he says. “How do I enhance what I can enhance in the show without throwing off what made it so great to begin with?”
Credit: Joan Marcus
Cryer initially visited the show when the producers asked him to be a guest speller — one of a handful of audience members who take part in the spelling bee before they're eliminated (typically on ridiculously hard words).
“I was in town, and I thought, ‘Well, that sounds like a gas,' ” he remembers thinking. A week after the show, his agent got a call wondering if he would replace Kravits, 59. “I said, ‘Yeah, that sounds like an amazing way to spend the summer.' ”
“When you see an ensemble cast operating at that incredibly high level, it's very rare that you get an opportunity to join it,” he says.
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The writer of the show's book, Rachel Sheinkin, has given him “a lot of leeway” as the host of the spelling bee to “change up the words for the guest spellers and really mess with them a lot.”
“And I'm just sort of learning to really run with that right now,” he says.
Before one song, “Pandemonium,” the middle schoolers are aghast after one of the guest spellers has to spell the word “cow.” Though Cryer hasn't witnessed it yet, he says, “I have heard that people have spelled that wrong.”
Still, he says, “I am trying to be prepared for every eventuality.” He thinks they cast him in part because “I'm willing to roll with wherever the show goes.”
Spelling Bee, he says, is “such a joyful experience” that he's glad to be a part of. “In a time when people are pretty stressed, and the world seems a little nuts, it's got such incredible heart, and that's sincere,” he says.
The audience “loves” the “kids” on stage, even if ultimately they know “the stakes are fairly low," Cryer notes. “You really feel for these wonderful kids."
If he has one disappointment, it's that his character “only sings a little,” and Cryer “absolutely would love” to appear in a show where he gets to sing more.
Before finding success on screen in films like the 1986 classic Pretty in Pink, the actor actually started his career on stage, making his Broadway debut in Harvey Fierstein’s Torch Song Trilogy in 1982. Two years later, in 1984, he joined the original production of Neil Simon's Brighton Beach Memoirs.
“Doing New York theater is just unlike anything else,” he says. “It changes you as an actor, and so I'd love to do more of it.”
Tickets for The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee are available now. The show runs until Sept. 6.
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