Spring Awakening | Millennial Productions
Millennial Productions’ Spring Awakening was a powerful reclamation of youth.
When I was in high school, I found it really difficult to relate to most forms of media at the time. Being a teenager is quite a confronting, confusing and painful experience. There is a lot to think about and even more things that are out of your control. It was during my ‘teenhood’ that I found Spring Awakening, a coming-of-age rock musical (with music by Duncan Sheik and book and lyrics by Steven Sater) based on Frank Wedekind’s 1891 play of the same name.
Set in late 19th century Germany, this rock musical explores the coming-of-age story of teenagers discovering and grappling with the fiery nature of adolescent sexuality, as well as with finding their own voices. As you can imagine, it’s not an easy process and one might argue, based on the ending of the show, that not all the characters succeed in this mission.
Image: Clear Image Photography
This was my second time seeing Spring Awakening live. The first time I saw it, it was done by a professional cast. However, despite this being a community theatre production, this was just as good. Maybe even better…
Let’s start with the casting. Nykita O-Keefe as Wendla was effortless, vulnerable and exquisitely captured the character’s innocence, curiosity and gradual enlightenment. Her vocal control is *chefs kiss* and each note she sang told a story. In my experience, not every singer can do that, but O-Keefe can. Mark my words, that girl is going places.
Damien Quick played O-Keefe’s love interest Melchior Gabor – another key player in the narrative – and brought such depth and nuance to his performance. Quick interprets and plays Melchior’s inner turmoil in deeply layered ways that were palpable for the audience. We saw the battles in his heart between the light and dark, his sensitivity versus his violence. O’Keefe and Quick combined play out an authentic, relatable love story between their two characters, and their chemistry filled up the Ron Hurley Theatre in spades.
The casting team have done an excellent job in having a gender-diverse cast; with director Taylor Andrews making a deliberate artistic choice to ignore the traditional gender constraints of the characters. This includes casting AJ Betts (they/she) as Moritz Stiefel; whose raw rendition of ‘Don’t Do Sadness’ is one of the musical highlights of the show, as well as Rae Rose’s (they/she/he) captivating performance as Ilse Neumann and the attention to detail to encompassing the character’s trauma and hope as authentic as possible.
Image: Clear Image Photography
Eliza De Castro’s musical direction was superb. Again, hard to believe that this show wasn’t a professional production as the harmonies were so fabulous and haunting. It truly was spectacular to have the cast members’ pitch perfect voices flood the theatre, sending shivers up my spine each time. Lauren Bensted’s choreography is very similar, if not identical, to the original Broadway casts’ (I may have seen a bootleg or two…) and manages to encompass all the joy, rage, and turmoil of being a teen.
The costumes and set design by Taylor Andrews were simplistic but served their purpose in capturing the ambience and symbolic nature of the show. Director Taylor Andrews transformed the set to be a symbol of each character’s journey as they move in and out of its rays throughout the show.
Spring Awakening was nothing short of a quality production by emerging musical theatre artists. Very excited to see what this company does next and crossing my fingers that they’ll be able to find a funding stream to be able to pay their actors and creatives for their work. Especially when it’s at this level of detail, complexity and stagecraft.
