New Virtual Production Brings "Spring Awakening" Into The COVID-Era
"Spring 2020 woke up a lot of people," multihyphenate theater artist Jake Egan O’Hara said of the season which found the country wrestling with COVID-19, racial unrest and giving increased attention to making theater more inclusive. It's also when Egan – a Massachusetts-based designer, director, actor and teacher – decided to mount an entirely virtual production of "Spring Awakening." Because "there is so much we feel powerless about," the project became a beacon of hope for him: both by telling a story with BIPOC and LGBTQ characters, but also a reminder that theater can survive a pandemic. "Any company in the Before Times could do 'Spring Awakening," Egan said, "but what does it mean to do it now? For me, it became a piece about social justice."
"Spring Awakening," a 2007 Best Musical Tony winner, features music by Duncan Sheik and book and lyrics by Steven Slater. Based on a German play of the same name, "Awakening" follows teenage students in a repressive, religious German community in the late 19th century. While under the tutelage of authoritarian teachers and often clueless parents, the younger generation is faced with understanding their newfound sexual urges and issues like sexual assault, depression, homosexuality and unwanted pregnancy. The show was last revived on Broadway in 2015 by Deaf West. For Egan, the show seemed to the perfect fit for this moment in time. "We’re in the middle of a pandemic; we're not allowed to see each other, touch each other or have any sort of intimacy," he explained, "[Our production is] going to show people the resilience of artists, but also carry those messages of resilience and maybe have a little bit of shock factor too." The worries of 2020 – isolation, masks, social distancing – make their way into this production as well, with actors donning face-coverings, giving new meaning to songs like "Touch Me."
When Egan decided to go ahead with plans to produce and direct a pre-filmed "Spring Awakening," he started reaching out to friends and colleagues, as well as posting nation-wide casting notices. He ended up with a cast of fourteen actors from across the country, ranging from young, non-equity performers to seasoned New York actors. Playing the adult women are Tony-nominee Beth Malone (of "Fun Home") and Tony-winner Alice Ripley (of "Next To Normal").
When casting, Egan says the most important thing was finding a diverse group of actors who could bring their own experiences to the piece. "[The cast has] a lot of BIPOC actors," Tyla Collier, who plays Anna, said, "it was special for me personally that there were discussions about how things change when you hire a BIPOC actor to play a role that's traditionally played by a White one. I think that needs to happen more. Doing a show set in 1800s Germany, it changes the intention, the delivery, when I say the lines as a Black person. I think it was really cool we didn't ignore that. We had an open discussion as a group. We did research. We had a racial dramaturg to make sure we all felt safe and comfortable."
These conversations led to changes in the show's meaning and execution. Victoria Gill, the show's Wendla, is mixed-race and playing the character as such. "When she says, 'I've never felt anything,' that line doesn't just mean, 'I've never felt happy or sad,' it's 'I've never felt a part of anything, a part of myself,'" Egan explained, "We haven't changed lines, we haven't changed the plot, but it's changing the context and the meaning of what's being said by who's saying it."
Michael DeRosa also felt the responsibility of being a gay actor portraying a character coming to terms with his sexuality. "Ernst and Hanschen live in this time when homosexuality was seen as a crime and anything that wasn't the norm was demonized. We're kind of scarily creeping back into that territory now. I think this is a way to make a statement.” One way to do that is with his portrayal of Ernst. "I wanted to bring a different energy to the role,” he said, “[my scene with Hanschen is] often played laughs, but here it’s much more of a tragedy. I wanted it to be taken seriously and show that LGBTQ individuals are not just comedic relief but fully fleshed out people."
While Egan, Collier and DeRosa said that the production process was complicated, it was nevertheless fun and rewarding. The group rehearsed over Zoom and recorded their music separately. When it came to filming, the Equity actors recorded their parts at home with backdrops, lighting, props and costumes sent by Egan and the creative team. Other scenes were filmed in person following strict COVID-19 protocols. As DeRosa explains, the in-person filming had its own set of challenges: "We had a Zoom going with all of the Union people that was projected onto the wall. We needed to have an earpiece in so we could listen to the actors on Zoom and say our lines, but there was also a delay." While Egan says the show was "an exercise in massive flexibility" (and nicknamed 525,600 Pivots), it was "incredible watching it all come together."
"Honestly, it feels like a miracle," Collier said, "This is a really hard time for a lot of people, but to be able to use my creative brain and to do a show that means so much for me with such great people, it just restored my hope of what this can be going forward." "It brought me a lot of personal joy and really brought the spark back in terms of performing," DeRosa added, "even in the darkest of times, there's always hope and a way forward."
"We are resilient motherfuckers," concluded Egan, "['Spring Awakening'] became a story of humanity just as much as it was about the survival of theater."
Tickets to "Spring Awakening" can be purchased at www.wordofourbodies.com. The show will be available from November 29-December 13. For the sake of full transparency, while the author isn't involved in this production, he does serve on the board of another theater company with Jake Egan.