'SPRING AWAKENING' has Cleveland debut

By John Benson

The award-winning musical runs through March 15.

Spring comes early this year with the Cleveland debut of eight-time Tony Award-winning musical “Spring Awakening,” which opens Tuesday and runs through March 15 at the Palace Theatre.

“Spring Awakening” has received many comparisons to the popular production “Rent.” Not only are both shows based on classic pieces of theater — the former taken from the infamous 1891 Frank Wedekind play, while the latter is based on “La Boh ®me” — but they each feature gritty rock music. However, it’s the musical score for “Spring Awakening” that truly makes it stand out from all other Broadway shows.

“I think it’s unique in terms of the music,” said “Spring Awakening” Music Director/Conductor Jared Stein, calling from St. Louis. “People ask what is it, and it’s a little hard to pigeonhole into a specific style. And then yeah, specifically, in terms of being a Broadway musical, it certainly veers more toward the rock musical side of things from before with ‘Hair,’ ‘Rent’ and ‘Tommy.’ But for some reason the way this show sort of combines the musical elements, it just comes across in this really unique way.”

Part of that uniqueness includes how the music is used. Whereas with most classical musicals, songs are meant to advance the plot once the dialogue has run its course, with “Spring Awakening” the music is used to communicate the emotional status of the characters as inner monologues.

More so, most of these inner monologues are, well, um, adult in nature with unprintably titled songs such as “The (expletive) of Living” and “Totally (expletive).” Wait, a rock-based musical with such lewd titles isn’t supposed to be a Tony Award-winning Broadway success story.

“Exactly, and yet it is,” Stein laughed. “If you talked to the producers and the writers, they never, never expected this to make it to Broadway, let alone win eight Tony Awards. It was just this sort of pet project they had high expectations for, an off-Broadway, under-the-radar kind of show, and it really just took off.

“So we’re happy to have this opportunity to take it around the country and have people hear songs like they normally wouldn’t hear in a Broadway musical.”

Set against the backdrop of a repressive and provincial late 19th century Germany, “Spring Awakening” tells the timeless story of teenage self-discovery and budding sexuality as seen through the eyes of three teenagers. Haunting and provocative, the musical celebrates an unforgettable journey from youth to adulthood with powerful poignancy and passion.

“Personally, I feel everybody could and should enjoy it,” Stein said. “I think our target audience is probably late teens and early 20s, but what we’ve learned is the audience can stretch even younger and obviously much older. So as people sort of enter into seeing the show with a very, very open mind, there’s something for everybody to take away from it and learn from the piece.”

“Spring Awakening” contains a good deal of sexual material and is not recommended for children.