Event

SPRING AWAKENING

SPRING AWAKENING is a rock musical adaptation of the controversial 1891 German play of the same title by Frank Wedekind. Set in late 19th-century Germany, it concerns teenagers struggling with the changes wrought by their awakening sexuality.

"In exploring the tortured inner lives of a handful of adolescents in 19th-century Germany, this brave new musical, haunting and electrifying by turns, restores the mystery, the thrill and quite a bit of the terror to that shattering transformation that stirs in all our souls sometime around the age of 13, well before most of us have the intellectual apparatus in place to analyze its impact...with a ravishing rock score by the playwright Steven Sater and the singer-songwriter Duncan Sheik."--NY Times.

"In its ferocious attack on the puritanical strictures of bourgeois life, and its piercing indictment of the way youthful sensuality is often denied and suppressed to tragic effect, it deals with issues that continue to plague us: Teen suicide, sexual abuse, botched abortions. More importantly, beyond those 'sensational' things, it suggests the way a person's intellectual and creative spirit can be crushed for good, the way lies can become a way of life, and the way joy can give way to brutality."--Hedy Weiss

SPRING AWAKENING received eight 2007 Tony Awards, including best musical, direction, book, score and featured actor. The show also won four Drama Desk Awards, while its London production won four Olivier Awards.

Directed by LAVC professor Cathy Susan Pyles.