Interview: SNS' SPRING AWAKENING at Garden Theater

The May 5 performance of the Short North Stage's production of SPRING AWAKENING at the Garden Theater (1187 N. High Street in downtown Columbus) will be more than just opening night for Emma Rose Johnson and Sage Lee.

The performance will also mark the first time Lee and Johnson have seen the show performed live.

"I mean, I've just watched bootlegged productions of it on YouTube and stuff but I will never have seen it before doing it," said Johnson, who plays Wendla Bergmann. "I played Wendla when one of my friends directed THE AWAKENING OF SPRING (for a student-run theater festival at Otterbein University) but that was without all the music. I kind of fell in love with the script itself. But the music on top of that is just so beautiful. I love how it brings19th century Germany and 21st century pop music together. I don't think there's another show like it."

"This is definitely a challenge not knowing it from the very beginning (of rehearsals) because there's so much context you have to understand," added Lee, who plays Moritz Stiefel. "I definitely did my research on this show, watching every bootleg I could find. The songs in this show are more like poetry rather than explaining what is going on in a scene."

SPRING AWAKENING marries the 1891 screenplay by Fred Wedekind and a powerful musical score of Duncan Sheik in a tale which deals with the stirring sexual awareness of teenagers in 19th century Germany.

To capture the coming-of-age themes of the show, director Edward Carignan assembled the youngest cast SNS has used in one of its main stage productions with most of the actors falling in the range between the high school and college age. Thom Christopher Warren (who plays all the adult male roles), Krista Stauffer (who plays all the adult female roles), Lake Wilburn (Melchoir Gabor), and Hunter Minor (Hanschen Rilow) are

over the age of 21.

College-aged students include Johnson, Lee, Nicholas Bradley (Ernst), Sydney Freihofer (Ilse), Shannon Lane (Ana), Sara Tuohy (ensemble) and Ethan Zink (Georg Zirschnitz) and high school students are Zuri Clarno (Martha Bessell), Lillian Doll (Thea), Carter Minor (Otto Lammermeier), and ensemble cast members Phoenix Gray, Nicolas Brunet, Dominic Catrone, Tessa Druhan, and Lorelei Roeger.

Lee says many of the issues facing youth haven't changed despite the two-century gap between the show's setting and its current run.

"I understand that feeling of trying to understand your body, trying to make sense of who you are," Lee said. "(People still face that feeling of) seeing your friends around you achieve things faster than you do, facing the disapproval of family and loved ones and trying to figure out how to fit into a society that doesn't necessarily make space for you."

Despite some of the show's darker themes, Johnson said SPRING AWAKENING closes with the hopeful notes of "The Song of Purple Summer:" The earth will wave with corn/The gray-fly choir will mourn. And mares will neigh with stallions that they mate, foals they've borne./And all shall know the wonder. I will sing the song of purple summer.

"It's challenging to deal with all these really heavy topics that are still actively affecting a lot of people in our generation," she said. "I think it's important for people to come see the show for its honesty and for its hope. While the characters in still haven't found their 'purple summer,' it's such a touching story with so much joy in it."

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