Le monde des musicals

Set in a small German town at the end of the 19 th Century, the adolescent Wendela is confused about the changes in her body, but her mother is too embarrassed to explain the facts of life. Moritz is another young person traumatised by puberty, and starts failing in his school lessons. When his friend Melchior tries to help him, their Headmaster strikes them both and tells them to get on with their Latin. Disaster looms when Wendela falls in love with Melchior and they both discover desires unlike anything they’ve ever felt. Moritz soon drops out of school when neither his one adult friend, Melchior’s mother, nor his equally outcast friend Ilse can deal with his plea for help. He kills himself. The Headmaster blames this “crime” on Melchior, and when Wendela is found to be pregnant, Melchior is shipped off to a reformatory prison and Wendela to a backstreet abortionist. Melchior escapes and runs to meet Wendela at midnight in the graveyard, only to learn he has lost her forever.

In a world where adults hold all the cards, three school friends experience the exhilarating, turbulent journey into adulthood…

Spring Awakening is a vibrant and poignant story about a brilliant young student Melchior, his troubled friend Moritz, and Wendla, a beautiful teenage girl - all on a voyage of personal discovery and sexual awakening.

Inspired by Frank Wedekind’s 1891 masterpiece of repressed emotion and adolescent passion, Spring Awakening explodes onto the Lyric stage driven by a thrilling contemporary score

Spring Awakening had a number of workshops, concerts and rewrites over a seven-year period, including workshops at La Jolla Playhouse, San Diego, California, and the Roundabout Theatre Company, and a concert at Lincoln Center in February 2005, under the auspices of actor/producer Tom Hulce. It premiered Off-Broadway at the Atlantic Theatre Company on May 19, 2006 and ran through August 5, 2006.

Broadway
The musical opened on Broadway at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre on December 10, 2006 and closed on January 18, 2009, after 888 performances and 29 previews. Directed by Michael Mayer with choreography by Bill T. Jones, the costume designer is Susan Hilferty, set designer Christine Jones and lighting designer Kevin Adams. It received nearly unanimous favorable reviews, and easily recouped its initial $6 million capitalization, breaking even on August 27, 2007.

Decca Broadway released the original cast recording on December 12, 2006, which won the Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album in 2008.[10] The guitar Sheik used to compose songs for Spring Awakening was included in the 2008 exhibition "Writing to Character: Songwriters & the Tony Awards" at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

United States tours
A U.S. National tour (with one stop in Toronto, Canada) opened on August 15, 2008 at The Balboa Theatre in San Diego, California. The national tour ended on May 23, 2010 in Orlando, Florida. A non-equity US tour began at Shryock Auditorium on October 14, 2010 in Carbondale, Illinois. The non-equity US tour ended its run on May 15, 2011 in Ottawa, Canada at the Centrepointe Theatre.

Original London production
The London production began January 23, 2009 at the Lyric Hammersmith, transferred to the Novello Theatre on March 21, 2009, and closed on May 30, 2009. The London production won four Laurence Olivier Awards, including Best New Musical.

Despertar de Primavera (Spanish Title)
Frühlings Erwachen (German Title)
O Despertar da Primavera (Portugese Title)
Tavaszébredes (Hungarian Title)

Act I
"Mama Who Bore Me" – Wendla
"Mama Who Bore Me" (Reprise) – Wendla and Girls
"All That's Known" – Melchior
"The Bitch of Living" – Moritz, Melchior and Boys
"My Junk" – Girls and Boys
"Touch Me" – Boys and Girls
"The Word of Your Body" – Wendla and Melchior
"The Dark I Know Well" – Martha, Ilse and Boys
"And Then There Were None" – Moritz and Boys
"The Mirror-Blue Night" – Melchior and Boys
"I Believe" – Boys and Girls

Act II
"The Guilty Ones" – Wendla, Melchior, Boys and Girls
"Don't Do Sadness" – Moritz
"Blue Wind" – Ilse
"Don't Do Sadness/Blue Wind" – Moritz and Ilse
"Left Behind" – Melchior, Boys and Girls
"Totally Fucked" – Melchior and Full Company (except Moritz)
"The Word of Your Body" (Reprise) – Hanschen, Ernst, Boys and Girls
"Whispering" – Wendla
"Those You've Known" – Moritz, Wendla and Melchior
"The Song of Purple Summer" – Ilse and Full Company

++Note: "The Guilty Ones" replaced off-Broadway version's Act II opening, "There Once Was a Pirate"; the latter is available as a bonus track sung by composer Duncan Sheik on the iTunes version of the original cast recording. A reprise of "Touch Me," sung by Melchior, appeared in "Whispering" during the Chicago, Vienna, London runs, was added to the tour, and is part of the amateur rental materials.

The Children
Melchior, headstrong, handsome, and charismatic. He knows much more than the others because of what he reads in books and is able to see the corruption in society.
Moritz, Melchior's intense and nervous best friend.
Wendla, a childhood friend of the boys. She has a romantic and sexual connection with Melchior
Ilse, another childhood friend who runs away from an abusive home to become a Bohemian
Hänschen, a very humorous, and almost arrogant classmate
Ernst, a naive classmate. He is Hanschen's love interest
Martha, one of Wendla's friends who is abused by her father
Georg, another classmate who lusts after his older, busty piano teacher
Otto, another classmate who has a dream about his mother
Thea, a school girl and Wendla's best friend
Anna, a school girl and Martha's best friend

The Adults
Frau Bergmann, Wendla's mother
Fanny Gabor, Melchior's mother
Herr Gabor, Melchior's father
Herr Stiefel, Moritz's father
Fräulein Grossenbustenhalter, Georg's piano teacher
Hanschen's Father
The Teachers
Schmidt, The abortionist

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