Based on Frank Wedekind's play of the same name, Spring Awakening depicts a dozen young people making their way through the thrilling, complicated and mysterious time of sexual awakening.
This production won a bunch of awards and was on Broadway from 2007-2009. We caught it near the end of the run.
5 comments:
I saw this from stage with my wife a few years ago. We liked it a lot. What did you think?
We liked it a lot too. Very energetic. The music was lots of fun. Different people; different setting yet the themes of alienation are universal. Reminded me of my relatives-all German.
This really works well - the blend of rock music, the edgy swear word laden lyrics, and the 19th century costumes and dialogue. Infectious and raucous and rebellious and moving. I thought it was great. Ages ago when I was a college actor we did the original Wedekind play and it got selected to perform in the American College Theater Festival Mid-Atlantic Competition. A big deal! We travelled from Allentown, PA to Newark, Delaware to compete with five other college productions. A really lame version of Hair and a incredibly professional production of The Hot L Baltimore were two of the others.
The musical retains the true spirit of the play in the non-musical scenes. It's still astonishing to me how far ahead of his time Wedekind was, how he saw what repression and guilt can do to teens and their families. The play is a mix of utter tragedy and paradoxical life affirming message in the finale that takes place in a graveyard of all places.
Patti - I've never seen this one done on stage, but I love the themes and the premise. Hopefully it'll come out this way...
Steven Sater is a very interesting musical writer and I'd like to see this one.
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