Photo Flash: Original 'Melchior' Jonathan Groff Passes the Torch to SPRING AWAKENING's New Star

Deaf West's acclaimed production of Steven Sater and Duncan Sheik's Spring Awakening, directed by Michael Arden and choreographed by Spencer Liff, just began rehearsals for its Broadway transfer at The Brooks Atkinson Theatre.

Spring Awakening, the Tony Award-winning Best Musical of 2007, will play a strictly limited Broadway engagement, with previews beginning on Tuesday, September 8 and opening night set for Sunday, September 27. The show will run 18 weeks only, through Saturday, January 9, with no extension possible. It will be performed simultaneously in American Sign Language and spoken and sung in English by a cast of 28.

The complete 28-member 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 McKenzie, Andy Mientus, Patrick Page, Ren, Krysta Rodriguez, Daniel David Stewart, Ali Stroker,Alexandra Winter, and Alex Wyse.

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.

Jonathan Groff and Austin McKenzie