Spring Awakening

For a repressed group of teenagers, the road to adulthood is fraught with suffocating confusion in Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater’s Tony-winning adaptation of Frank Wedekind’s prescient 19th-century drama. As the adults in their lives exert control but withhold guidance, Melchior, Wendla, Moritz, Ilse, and their friends navigate blindly through the enigma of their burgeoning sexuality. Both haunting and high-octane, the score bristles with anthems to adolescence like “Mama Who Bore Me” and “The Bitch of Living,” and is infused with a blend of folk, pop, and rock that gives this tale unexpected soul. With generational gaps growing wider than ever, the angst and defiance at the heart of this boundary-pushing musical act as a bridge between our deeply personal yet wholly universal experiences.