Deaf West's Broadway Revival of SPRING AWAKENING Starts Tonight

Deaf West Theatre's acclaimed production of Steven Sater and Duncan Sheik's SPRING AWAKENING, directed by Michael Arden and choreographed by Spencer Liff, begins performances tonight, September 8, at Broadway's Brooks Atkinson Theatre (256 West 47th Street). SPRING AWAKENING's strictly limited 18-week-only engagement will open on Sunday, September 27.

The complete cast of SPRING AWAKENING is Robert Ariza, Miles Barbee, Katie Boeck, Alex Boniello, Joshua Castille, Lizzy Cuesta, Daniel N. Durant, Treshelle Edmond, Sandra Mae Frank, Kathryn Gallagher, Sean Grandillo, Elizabeth Greene, Russell Harvard, Amelia Hensley, Van Hughes, Lauren Luiz, Emmy and Golden Globe Award winner Camryn Manheim, Daniel Marmion, Academy and Golden Globe Award winner and Emmy Award nominee Marlee Matlin, Austin P. McKenzie, Andy Mientus, Patrick Page, Ren, Krysta Rodriguez, Daniel David Stewart, Ali Stroker, Alexandra Winter, and Alex Wyse.

SPRING AWAKENING, the Tony Award-winning Best Musical of 2007, will run 18 weeks only, through Saturday, January 9. It will be performed simultaneously in American Sign Language and spoken and sung in English by a cast of 28. Deaf West Theatre was last represented on Broadway with the triumphant production of Big River in 2003.

Deaf West Theatre's innovative production of SPRING AWAKENING recently completed an extended, critically-acclaimed engagement at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Los Angeles where the production was expanded from its original, sold-out run at the Rosenthal Theatre in downtown L.A.

SPRING AWAKENING, with book and lyrics by Steven Sater and music by Duncan Sheik, is directed by Michael Arden and choreographed by Spencer Liff. The creative team includes Dane Laffrey (scenic and costume design), Ben Stanton (lighting design), Gareth Owen (sound design), Lucy Mackinnon (projection design), and Carol F. Doran (hair and wig design). New York casting by Telsey + Company/Craig Burns, CSA. Original casting by Beth Lipari and Bruce Newberg.

Based on Frank Wedekind's controversial 1891 expressionist play of the same name and featuring an electrifying pop/rock score, SPRING AWAKENING follows the lives of a group of adolescents as they navigate their journey from adolescence to adulthood in a fusion of morality, sexuality and rock & roll. An extraordinary creative team including Michael Arden and Spencer Liff has reinvented the groundbreaking musical about lost innocence and the struggles of youth in true Deaf West style.

Following its transfer from Atlantic Theatre Company to Broadway's Eugene O'Neill Theatre, the original production of SPRING AWAKENING was the recipient of eight 2007 Tony Awards including Best Musical; four Drama Desk Awards including Best Musical; three Outer Critics Circle Awards including Outstanding New Broadway Musical; two Lucille Lortel Awards including Outstanding Musical; the Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Musical; and the 2007 Drama League Award for Distinguished Production of a Musical. Amidst wild critical reception for Steven Sater and Duncan Sheik's "ravishing rock score," including the Tony Award for Best Score and Drama Desk Awards for Best Music and Best Lyrics, SPRING AWAKENING launched the careers of its young actors now known for their film, television and theater work, and stunned Broadway with "something unusual and aspiring, something vital and new" (Charles Isherwood, The New York Times).

SPRING AWAKENING is produced by Ken Davenport, Cody Lassen, Hunter Arnold and Deaf West Theatre (Artistic Director David J. Kurs), with Carl Daikeler, Sandi Moran, Chockstone Pictures, Caiola Productions, H. Richard Hopper, R&D Theatricals, Brian Cromwell Smith, Monica Horan Rosenthal, and Associate Producer Kayla Greenspan.