Tony-award winning rock musical ‘Spring Awakening’ opens March 2
A rock musical adaptation of the seminal play about the trials and tribulations of growing up, “Spring Awakening,” winner of eight Tony Awards including Best Musical, will open Friday, March 2, at 7:30 p.m. in Palmer Auditorium, under the direction of guest director Leora Morris. Three more performances are on Saturday, March 3, at 2 and 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, March 4, at 2 p.m. Tickets are $18, general admission, and $8 for students, seniors and military, available online, at the door, or by calling 860-439-ARTS (2787).
Through a groundbreaking Broadway score, with book and lyrics by Steven Sater and music by Duncan Sheik, “Spring Awakening” explores the journey from adolescence to adulthood with a poignancy and passion that is illuminating and unforgettable. Based on the play by Frank Wedekind, the landmark musical is an electrifying fusion of morality, sexuality and rock and roll.
As Morris describes the play, “In Spring Awakening, a community of teenagers in late nineteenth-century Germany struggle to get to know themselves and their impulses of lust, rage, tenderness, and rebellion, in a world of grownups and grownup systems that - intentionally and unintentionally - domesticate, repress and oppress them. The songs open up a poetic, contemporary space in which the teens can be their truest selves; where their civilized, social exteriors give way to their delicate and unruly interiors.”
She continues, “What happens when we decide to ‘be the change we want to see in the world’ if the world isn’t ready for that change? Can we raise children with the structures they need in order to grow safely without being overly controlling? Is giving children too much freedom dangerous?“
The Theater Department production features dynamic choreography by the College’s own David Dorfman and music direction by Robert Frost. Rebecca Brill Weitz ’18, whose self-designed major is in Performance Design and Technology, is the lighting designer. Guest director Morris is joined by Claire Deliso and Yana Biryukova, collaborators from the Yale School of Drama.
Morris holds an M.F.A. from the Yale School of Drama, is an Associate Artist at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta, and an O’Neill/National New Play Network National Directing Fellow, which included some residencies at the nearby Eugene O’Neill Center in 2017. Originally from Toronto, Leora works on theatrical projects all over Canada and the USA and has upcoming productions in New York, Washington D.C., Toronto, and Atlanta. She is a winner of Toronto’s 2012 Ken McDogall Award for Emerging Directors and a co-recipient of Yale’s Julian Milton Kaufman Prize for Directing.
February 26, 2018
