A good number of years ago, director Michael Mayer and I were exchanging ideas about projects we found intriguing. When I mentioned I wanted to commission an opera based on Frank Wedekind's SPRING AWAKENING, he said that he had just begun work on a musical based on the same material with author Steven Sater and the songwriter Duncan Sheik. Their unique approach was to keep the story in 1890's Germany but the songs would be in Duncan's contemporary idiom.
I was immediately struck by the potential theatrical tension created between these dozen adolescents in their repressive, provincial community, and the possibility of freedom that the songs might offer. They could find hope and exhilarating release in song, but then have to button right back up into their confusing, restrictive lives. This seemed to me to be a really cool way to tell the story of these young people as they try to find their way through the thrilling, painful, yearning, rebellious, joyful time of their awakening.
It is extraordinary how contemporary this story feels more than 100 years after it was first written. Then as now, it illuminates not only the stories of these young people, but also the role that we, as adults, take in raising our teens; the challenges of finding a way to be responsive to their needs, to empower them with the truth and to do all within our grasp to guide them with love and understanding into their adulthood.
So, in one sense, we have a cautionary tale about what can happen in the absence of such guidance and compassion. But at the center of SPRING AWAKENING is a beautiful and haunting love story between Wendla and Melchior, two young people who (like Romeo and Juliet and WEST SIDE STORY's Tony and Maria) find each other, fall in love and passionately yearn for each other, wanting to be together, but find themselves at the mercy of a system that might ultimately defeat them. Above all else, this is their story.
When we decided to bring this show to Broadway, we knew that the issues explored in Frank Wedekind's 1891 banned play were still relevant today. Merged with a true indie-rock score by Steven Sater and Duncan Sheik, Spring Awakening has become a cross-generational phenomenon that continues to transcend age and cultural barriers.
We have received such a major response, not just from young people, but from parents wanting to share their unique experience with Spring Awakening and its role in helping start a conversation with their sons and daughters. They tell us that the musical opens the door to discuss the topics the "Adults" in the show fear to discuss or are determined to ignore.
We have been surprised and gratified by these stories and the fact that so many parents report that the show's characters and plot inspire such meaningful dialogue --- sometimes at the theater, sometimes later at home, and sometimes both.
We thought the best way to illustrate this would be to have you hear from other parents and teens who have experienced Spring Awakening together and draw your own conclusions whether you would like to share the musical with your family.
We hope that your questions/concerns will be answered and you will find Spring Awakening not only entertaining, but thought provoking and insightful into those teenage issues experienced in every century, the world over.
Dear Mr. Hulce,
Spring Awakening is more of a "family" show for teens and their parents than much of the so-called family entertainment currently on Broadway. It certainly entertains, with its unique set, energetic cast, and rockin' score, but it also provokes thought and conversation. Although ostensibly set in the 1880s, Spring Awakening portrays many of the difficult issues and decisions that young people today still experience and their elders distinctly remember. Sexuality in a number of its variations is graphically displayed, in a relevant and realistic manner. Perhaps even more importantly, the pressures placed upon teens to both grow and develop as individuals occur simultaneously with demands to conform. You can't help but leave the theater discussing what happened and how you might have reacted if in a certain character's position. It's an opportunity to share and explore your values with your teen.
Luann Reid-Siegel
Dear Mr. Hulce,
As a parent, I wanted to let you know how important it was for me and my 17-year old son, Phillip, to share in the depth and difficulty of the issues presented in Spring Awakening. As a pretty sophisticated kid, Phillip has always delegated the Broadway stage as a place for well-polished fluff. Needless to say, he was taken aback by the headiness of what goes on in this show, and of course, the stunning beauty of the production. Spring Awakening is proof that challenging issues like sexual, religious, and intellectual freedom, which are still very much in the face of today's youth, can be dealt with sensitively and still rock the house.
Both of us were quite surprised to get hit with such a cluster of controversial, yet relevant, themes such as atheism and suicide. The characters in Spring Awakening are not only waking up to the authority of their hormones but to the power of their minds, and questioning all that has been spoon fed to them by their parents, teachers, and the culture at large. These rebellions are necessary rites of passage.
As parents, our job is to get out of the way and let experiences come into our child's life that support their ever-growing and changing minds and bodies. To have this happen through a work of art is especially transformative.
It's truly amazing that a play written in 1891 can have such resonating power. The show and its diverse issues, generated many a mother/son chat, which can be rare during these trying years.
Thank you for having the theater guts to expand the kind of experience families can have together in a Broadway show.
Warm Regards,
Nancy Wozny
Dear Steven,
Spring Awakening was wonderful! And it was amazing. What you and Duncan did should have been impossible. You took a play that, forgive me, almost no one wanted to see, that was too tough for them, that was, apparently, very dated, and you made it totally compelling and now, and vibrant, deeply stirring, without in any way selling out the original. The bookies would have offered big odds against anyone pulling it off. You not only pulled it off but, in the process, you created, several said, the new musical theatre form for our time. Wow!
How is it possible for the show to be so overwhelmingly sad and honest and yet so vivacious, compelling, and, dare I say, hopeful? I felt all that.
People tend to call the original "depressing." Yours isn't because you get so far inside the kids and you do it with...scope.
Your lyrics are so rich; truly they are poetry. Again and again, they just grab me and stun me. And Duncan's music supports and clarifies them so beautifully. I can't remember ever hearing better unity of word and melody. The two of you were clearly destined to be a team. Your artistic souls must have merged.
It was a ravishing experience. I wish I could have seen it twice. The staging concept was brilliant and the set...well, hell, everything about the show worked to make it dazzle.
When I got home, I found that all the students had fallen for the show from hearing the CD. I mean fallen. They are, in fact, in New York now. They chose to devote their Spring Break to seeing your show twice and they've been all a-bubble for weeks with anticipation. Several of them can imagine no more delicious future than to be cast in the first National touring company and a couple of them would, in fact, be appropriate.
So, Steven, thank you for this wonderful piece. I love it and I am deliriously happy that you finally have the huge hit you have so long deserved. The first of many to come, I have no doubt…
Love
Roger
Dear Mr. Hulce,
Teenagers have a lot to learn. Yet any teen will tell you that having a parent dictate values and morals is not the best way to reach them.
For me and my own teenage daughters, it's about creating a dialogue. I want my children to develop critical thinking skills, but I don't want to see my daughters develop their these skills in a vacuum. I want the opportunity to discuss the heavy issues with them, and I grasp any opening I see to share thoughts and ideas.
Spring Awakening is a gateway to these sorts of discussions. The award-winning play introduces a lot of topics that some parents may find difficult or awkward to talk about. But they are issues that are germane to any teenager's life today.
There are no subjects in Spring Awakening that I find frightening or threatening. All the issues that are dealt with in the play are issues that teenagers must deal with eventually. They are handled in detail, but the play allows the very real emotions to come through.
And it is done to music to which my teenagers can relate.
If a teenager and a parent see this play - together or separately - it gives them the opportunity to discuss these issues. The musical can act as a springboard for deeper ruminating on values and emotions, and on the many decisions awaiting young adults as they make their way in the world — decisions involving sexuality and religion, areas in which they will have to make their own, informed, decisions.
I would encourage parents to take advantage of this opportunity. Raising these topics can be difficult, but with the help of the music and story in this play, the attempt to find answers can be, perhaps, a little bit easier.
The discussions may be painful, but life isn't always easy. And while they may not admit it, your teens do want to know what you think. They also want to find their own way. By encouraging them to see this play, parents send a message — the message that they trust their kids and value their opinions.
Sincerely,
Cindy Gerlach
