Laura and Samara spend their days as non-profit unicorns and fill every spare minute exploring the world of musical theatre as BFFs (that’s Broadway Friends Forever). Follow @bffs613 on X, Instagram and Facebook.
Elevator Theatre Company (ETC) hits us with another ambitious show for their second production and official 2024/2025 season opener. Spring Awakening is an eight-time Tony Award-winning musical, that tells a powerful story of moving through adolescence and navigating sex, desire, insecurity and individual and societal expectations. A large thread through this needle is the roles adults can play in our loss of innocence–whether by design or by omission.
The show sees two seemingly opposing pieces, a story set in a provincial German town in the 1890s and a rock music score, yet they fit together seamlessly. With powerful angsty group numbers like “The Bitch of Living” or “Totally Fucked” and emotionally powerful numbers like “The Dark I Know Well” and “Those You’ve Known”, the score is impeccable and demanding of any cast. And what a cast–ETC has a stacked deck from the many main cast roles to the swings acting as backup vocals–every single role is knocked out of the park.
Photo by Laura Collins
A key piece, that was also in ETC’s first production, is the live band. Small yet mighty, getting to see a sneak peek of them on stage further adds to the intimacy of the show and brings the score to life in a way that it just deserves to be heard.
Spring Awakening is so powerful in book and music, it is told best through simple costuming and staging. The set-up at LabO has been transformed into an intimate experience with the audience wrapped around three sides of the stage. The show is played at all angles, so no matter where you are sitting in the venue, you won’t miss a beat. With simple period costumes and the effortless use of the large stage, the actors are aided in tone with minimal yet purposeful lighting, and added depth with a creative use of box crates. Director and founder Josh Rigo brings the story to life beautifully.
Photo by Laura Collins
More than one hundred years after the play’s setting, and 18 years after Spring Awakening opened on Broadway, the themes are just as relevant, powerful and effective. This is a show audiences need to experience!
Elevator Theatre Company’s production of Spring Awakening runs from Sept. 18–29 with 7:30pm performances from Sept. 18–28, and a matinee performance plays at 2pm on the 29th. Spring Awakening runs for two hours with one 15-minute intermission. Tickets range from $28-38. This production is intended for mature audiences and contains strong language. The show’s content addresses the subjects of sex, suicide and abuse.
.gif)
