VIDEO FLASHBACK: Broadway Gets Totally Punked By The Original SPRING AWAKENING

In August of 2005, BroadwayWorld reported that in the spring of the next year Chelsea's Atlantic Theater Company would begin previewing its first musical; one by a pair of young artists who had never delved into the form before. Rock composer Duncan Sheik was best known for his albums, DAYLIGHT and HUMMING and playwright Steven Sater's Off-Broadway productions included ASYLUM and CARBONDALE DREAMS.

SPRING AWAKENING would be based on Franz Wedekind's 1891 drama of teenage rebellion and sexual awakening, a topic so controversial it took the German playwright 15 years to find a theatre willing to produce it.

Sheik and Sater's musical also took a while to get a full Off-Broadway production. After being developed at the La Jolla Playhouse and the Sundance Theatre, Spring Awakening was ready to hit New York in a mounting produced by the Roundabout Theatre Company, but the project was dropped for financial reasons after the events of 9/11.

There was little interest in a New York production until a 2005 American Songbook production at Lincoln Center, featuring Kate Burton and Michael Cerveris, renewed interest.

Tucked away in The Atlantic's old brick theatre that, appropriately, used to be a church, the rumblings of punk rebellion began to rattle from an otherwise quiet block on 20th Street, and theatregoers who were too young to partake in the RENT revolution found their own rallying cry.

Directed by Michael Mayer and choreographed by the ballet and modern dance world's Bill T. Jones, the Off-Broadway company contained emerging young stars like Lea Michele, Jonathan Groff and John Gallagher, Jr., along with Tony-winner Frank Wood in the adult male roles.

When the musical moved to Broadway Tony-winner Stephen Spinella replaced Wood and Drama Desk-winner Christine Estabrook came into play the female adult roles. Stars-to-be Krysta Rodriguez and Jennifer Damiano joined the ensemble.

SPRING AWAKENING took home seven Tony Awards in 2007; Best Musical and the awards for book, score, direction, choreography, featured actor (Gallagher) and orchestrations (Sheik). But the ceremony had its humorously awkward moment when network television standards required to the company to end its medley with a slightly altered version of the second act showstopper, perhaps leaving those out of the loop thinking the song was titled "Totally."

SPRING AWAKENING, the Tony Award-winning Best Musical of 2007, will play a strictly limited Broadway engagement at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre (256 West 47th Street) 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. Deaf West Theatre was last represented on Broadway with the triumphant production of Big River in 2003.