Theatre concludes season with Spring Awakening

Apr. 8, 2025 — DENTON — There's nothing lightweight about the TWU Theatre's final production of the 2024-25 season. Not its subject matter, not the size of its cast, not its list of awards and certainly not the work's controversial history.

TWU will present Spring Awakening, a coming-of-age rock musical about teenagers dealing with their burgeoning sexuality.

"It's a folky rock musical," said director Noah Lelek, PhD. "We're in both 1890s Germany and current day. The songs are somewhat contemporary. They're representative of the minds of the students who were growing up at that point. Then we have the adults who are grounded in the late 1800s, so we have a mix of both time periods."

The play will run at TWU's Redbud Theater April 11-13 and 17-19. Tickets are on sale online.

Spring Awakening is based on the German play of the same name written by Frank Wedekind in the 1890s. The original work was significant in the development of modern theater but was also provocative and drew criticism, bans, and censorship. The play's subtitle was A Children's Tragedy, and the play discussed the sexually oppressive culture of its era and dealt with erotic fantasies, rape, abortion, and suicide.

Turning such a work into a rock musical took more than a decade, beginning in the 1990s before it debuted in 2006 off Broadway and the same year on Broadway. That adaptation softened one of the play's roughest moments, changing a rape into consensual sex.

"It's about young adults and teenagers coming into themselves and trying to find their place in the world when no one else is telling them how to do that," said E.J. Richard, a veteran of the Redbud stage who is assistant director for Spring Awakening. "A lot of them are grasping at straws, and some are begging their parents, tell me how this works. Tell me what to do and how to live my life. The adults are like, no, because that's how it's always been. You just kind of learn and you grow on your own, and no one tells you what to do. So it's a lot of struggles. It's a lot of love, but it's also a lot of sadness and tragedy. And it definitely leans more into the sadness and the tragedy. It's a pretty dark show, but I think there's a beauty in that. And it's just a lot about finding yourself as a young adult. And it's something that is quite timeless. Even though it is set in the 1800s, a lot of the struggles in the show are struggles that people go through today."

"Problems are still the same," Lelek said. "You still have parents really constricting young people who are trying to figure things out. They're trying not to fail. They're trying to do well. They're trying to figure out about religion and how the world works. Everybody's going down different paths, and you see the ramifications of the paths that they take. It's about being a teen, but it's still dealing with some really heavy issues. I want people to be aware that it's dealing with these kinds of issues, and it's pretty heavy at times."

The show contains flashing lights; haze; mentions of abortion; strong language; verbal, physical, and sexual abuse; depictions of suicide; and sexual content, and is not recommended for those under the age of 13.

To put on such a show requires a cast of 16 actors, many of whom are on stage throughout the production.

"Most of the actors are on stage 90, 95% of the time," Lelek said. "They're basically are on the sides and come up, go off. The adults stay off because they're really representative of the time period and society and religion and sort of the adults not understanding the kids and not telling them what's going on, and then the ramifications of all of those societal things and not telling people what's going on."

The cast is led by Jocelyn Losak, who has been on the stage in Redbud and the Margo Jones Performance Hall during 2024-25. She plays Wendla, described as a curious but innocent girl. The other leads are Thomas Fetner as Melchior and Gabriel Hawthorne as Moritz.

"Counting the crew, there's probably 40 or 50 people working on this show," Lelek said. "Coordinating all of the elements is tough. And we've given ourselves some challenges in terms of having them on stage most of the time and figuring out where everyone goes and how we transition from the songs to the movement to the acting. It's a challenge."

"We have an incredible cast," Richard said. "Every day I come in and they work their butts off, and it's so incredible. When we were learning the music the first week, they all caught on so fast. It's incredible. We have such a talented cast."

The show has 19 musical numbers composed by Duncan Sheik, who earned two Tony awards, one Drama Desk award and a Grammy for Spring Awakening.

"He was kind of a pop star but he did the music for this," Lelek said. "It's one of those musicals where every song is a really good. I don't know if people outside the theater would recognize some of the songs. Theater people definitely would because they were very popular in the early 2000s. They just fit so well into telling the story."

The show's original production won 23 awards, including eight Tony awards, and it garnered five more awards for its London production.

Spring Awakening

Cast:
Wendla: Jocelyn Losak
Melchior: Thomas Fetner
Moritz: Gabriel Hawthorne
Martha: Kiersten Farris
Thea: Lily Senina
Hanschen: Matthew Guess
Anna: Victoria Cortez
Ernst: Wesley/Emma Miller
Ilse: Hannah Rhodes
Georg: Colin Nguyen
Otto: Dinvela Adam
Adult Women: Alaina Hooker
Adult Men: Felix Ferris
Ensemble: Hayley Cavazos, Molly Hudson, Alyssa Serrano

Performances:
Friday-Saturday, Apr. 11-12, 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, Apr. 13, 2 p.m.
Thursday-Friday, Apr. 17-18, 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, Apr. 19, 2 p.m.

Tickets:
$5 for students and seniors, $10 for general admission.
Tickets online or for more information visit www.twu.edu/theatre or call the TWU Theatre Box Office at (940) 898-2020.

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