Friend to All Children: Rona Lisa, a successful real estate agent, dedicates time every year to the Putnam County Spelling Bee out of her sheer love of children and the celebration of their intelligence.
Reasonable Authority Figure: As the woman who runs the bee, she is excited for the students, but also adheres to the rules (without being overtly strict) and keeps things moving along.
Serious Business: Rona's been riding high on her Putnam County Spelling Bee win, which both inspired her to be a successful career woman and to become extremely fixated on the event itself, even more so than the rest of the cast. In the epilogue, she travels the world to engage in philanthropy by...bringing spelling to the less fortunate.
Vice Principal Douglas Panch
Berserk Button: When Schwarzy asks for an alternate definition of the word 'sluice' three times, he lashes out and needs to be escorted offstage.
Hopeless Suitor: Infatuated with Rona Lisa Peretti, though she's uninterested. He turns into something of a Stalker with a Crush by following her around for two years and eventually forcing her to take out a restraining order.
Noodle Incident: An unspecified "incident" occurred at the Twentieth Annual Spelling Bee and prevented Panch from participating for the next five years.
Gender Bender: Like Leaf, the character is also occasionally played as a female.
Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He's an ex-con who at one point expresses a desire to "beat [the spellers] up a little, so they understand that pain has degrees." However, "Prayer of the Comfort Counselor", since it's one of the only times any character treats the Bee as anything other than Serious Business. Oh, and in the "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue, it turns out that Mitch decided to become a comfort counselor full-time.
Morality Pet: She ends up becoming Barfée's friend and the only one to bring out his softer side.
When You Coming Home, Dad?: Applies to both of Olive's parents. Her mother is off at an Indian ashram and shows no sign of returning, while her father is working late and appears to forget to come at all. Detailed in "The I Love You Song".
William Morris Barfée
Black Comedy: Lost the previous year's spelling bee to Chip due to having a severe allergic reaction to some of the snacks served during it. A child almost dying to such would be horrific, but when that child is being played by a grown man (or teenager) hamming it up with overblown ambulance sirens sometimes accompanying, it comes across as bleakly comical.
Fail O Suckyname: When it's pronounced wrong through ignorance, negligence, or malice. Worse still, if you shorten William to "Bill", it's alliterative to boot.
Freudian Excuse: According to the script, his health issues get him picked on, which is why he's so combative. He also clashes with his new stepmother, who judges his interests.
Geek Physiques: The first actor who played him was overweight, which is usually how the part is cast; it may vary on the production, but he's usually either chubby or scrawny.
Insufferable Genius: Is unafraid to brag about just what a good speller he is, even loudly declaring "I KNOW" when he gets a word right. In the finale, though, he admits that he has some hidden insecurities about himself.
Nerd Glasses: Barfée typically sports a pair of glasses.
Only Sane Man: Becomes this near the end of the musical once he no longer needs his magic foot, as he's just a regular if sometimes awkward kid with bad allergies from a supportive household who just wants to prove himself at the Bee, not having comparable hang-ups concerning puberty and domestic tensions like the other contestants.
Pronouncing My Name for You: It's pronounced Bar-FAY, with an accent aigu, Barfée frequently reminds anyone who will listen.
Sickly Neurotic Geek: He has a sensitive peanut allergy and is very paranoid about it.
Logainne "Schwarzy" Schwartzandgrubenierre
Adaptational Jerkass: Daniel Schwartz is typically the less pleasant of Logainne's fathers, but certain productions of the musical will have him be the only one of the two trying to neutralize Barfée's magic foot.
Adorably Precocious Child: She's estimated to be about seven or eight years old (given that we find out she comes back to the county bee six more times, and the age limit is probably on eighth graders, who are usually around thirteen or fourteen), but is a skilled speller and very politically active, making speeches and championing the students' rights. Her being raised by two dads probably has something to do with the latter.
Determinator: The finale reveals that she came to the County Spelling Bee for seven years in a row, finally winning on her final (and last possible) attempt.
Gayngst: Implied by proxy — the kids in her class make fun of her for having two fathers, and she strives to do well to dissuade them.
Jewish and Nerdy: She was originated as a half-Jewish child, and is a precocious political overachiever.
The Maiden Name Debate: Played for laughs. Daniel and Carl both kept their original surnames while forcing Logainne to do with a very long portmanteau of theirs, signifying their rocky marriage and how overbearing they can be to their kid.
Nervous Wreck: She's prone to nervous breakdowns due to the constant pressure she's under.
Overly Long Name: Her surname is her fathers' surnames combined, making her surname very long.
The Perfectionist: Her overbearing fathers have made her very competitive and anxious about being anything but the best in a situation.
Plucky Girl: The youngest in the competition and both fiercely ambitious and optimistic. Even after being eliminated, she's certain she'll return next year.
Soapbox Sadie: She's the head of her Gay-Straight Alliance at school and interrupts the bee with a random political speech, which changes every production.
Asian and Nerdy: Excessively accomplished and of East Asian descent.
Broken Ace: Marcy is good at everything—academics, spelling, sports, music...heck, she's even the skinniest of the girls in her class. But unlike Barfée, who's an Insufferable Genius, she doesn't seem to take any pleasure in her endless successes: she even states "Winning is a job, and I get no real enjoyment." It's subverted when she decides to deliberately throw the competition and try losing for a change, which makes her happier.
Flat Character: Deliberately invoked. The other spellers all have some kind of quirk to define them, which makes Marcy seem rather boring by comparison. But this is because she's become so used to winning that it's now a chore for her—when she reveals her struggles with being so perfect and finally talks to Jesus Christ himself, she breaks out of her shell and becomes just as loud and silly as the rest of the spellers. Ironically, that happens because she loses.
Girlish Pigtails: Depending on the production, Marcy frequently has pigtails.
Stepford Smiler: We're told that Marcy is "not allowed to cry," and even though she has everything she should need to be happy, she's miserable.
Victory Is Boring: Marcy always wins no matter what she tries to do, and it's sucked all of the fun out of competing. Note that unlike the other characters (besides Chip), she doesn't have any particular strategy that helps her spell words—she just inherently knows how to get them right, without any gimmicks or tricks. Is it any wonder she chooses to lose on purpose?
Leaf Coneybear
Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Implied in his song "I'm Not That Smart" when he gets distracted by his own hair and forgets to spell the word, and often explicitly mentioned to have ADHD in character descriptions of him in regional productions.
Cloudcuckoolander: Though thought to be by his family, everyone else, and even himself a Kindhearted Simpleton ("I'm Not That Smart"), Leaf proves himself to be more of a surprisingly gifted child albeit an eccentric, head-in-the-clouds one.
Gender Bender: Like Mitch, the character can be played as a female one.
Hippie Name: He's the Cloudcuckoolander contestant from a hippie family; his name is Leaf, and he has siblings named Marigold, Brooke, Pinecone, Landscape, Raisin, and Paul.
Hippie Parents: Leaf's parents are explicitly described as being former hippies. True to the stereotype, they give all their children names associated with nature.
Homeschooled Kids: Leaf and the rest of his siblings are all homeschooled.
Redheads Are Uncool: Leaf is redheaded and is perceived to be odd and unpopular.
Charlito "Chip" Tolentino
Break the Haughty: He got cocky about his victory the previous years, only to lose in a humiliating fashion by getting an erection over a cute girl in the audience, distracting him mid-spell.
Every Year They Fizzle Out: He won the bee last year and has been praised by everyone who cares about that sort of thing, but he didn't do well in Nationals and he gets eliminated first in this round, much to his humiliation.
Race Lift: In the Chicago production, Chip's real name is Isaac Berkowitz, implying he's Jewish rather than Filipino as he is often cast.
Raging Stiffie: As detailed in his lament "My Unfortunate Erection", the reason he is dismissed from the competition.
