It’s hard to believe that a musical could get you hooked on phonics. But spelling suddenly becomes irresistible in “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” the touring production of the Broadway hit, now playing at the National Theater. The pleasing, goofy show takes an amalgam of precocious, oddball kids and makes you root for them all. There are archetypes for sure — the obsessive Asian kid, the nasal, self-important geek — but each one…

Dysfunctional relationship musicals…the Odyssey revisited…a one-nun show…one can’t say the D.C. theater scene is relying only on Halloween for their October programming inspiration (though we do, at least, have some Poe still playing). Here’s an overview of what’s opening this month. Not only a new show, but a new theater! Bethesda Theatre hopes that I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change, a relationship musical which has been compared to Seinfeld in its sensibilities, will become…