Cast Set For SPRING AWAKENING at East West Players

East West Players presents the Tony Award winning best musical Spring Awakening. Based on the play by Frank Wedekind, Spring Awakening features book & lyrics by Steven Sater and music by Duncan Sheik. Former EWP Artistic Director Tim Dang directs Spring Awakening, the last production of East West Players’ Season 57. This revolutionary musical rocks the roof off the David Henry Hwang Theater October 26 through November 19, 2023 with opening night on Sunday, October 29. 
 
“I’m thrilled to return to EWP after seven years to direct a challenging and thought provoking play like Spring Awakening” shares the show’s director and EWP Artistic Director emeritus Tim Dang. “I didn’t realize it had been that long a stretch but a lot has happened to the world, to our community, and to ourselves personally during that time.”
 
The last production Dang directed at East West Players was 2016’s La Cage Aux Folles. Dang continues, “The themes of Spring Awakening are relevant on so many levels that will affect different audiences in various ways: by age group, cultural background, economic/social class, religion, sex, and privilege/power. By this intersectionality, the musical becomes this complex tapestry of rebellion that our youth faces on a daily basis. Yet, this play takes place in 1890s Germany which makes it so bold and devastating: its message is still very clear and heartbreaking in 2023 America.”
 
Spring Awakening is the revolutionary Tony Award winning best musical that took the world by storm. In 1891 Germany, repressed, adolescent students stumble into adulthood as clumsily as they do into each other’s arms. With obstinate parents unwilling to guide them, young Melchior and Wendla explore their desires for each other, while Melchior’s dear friend Moritz fumbles dangerously through his own coming-of-age. This generation-defining musical is a rock anthem to all the “guilty ones,” poignantly exploring the dark, passionate, and twisting journey from adolescence to adulthood.
 
Tickets may be purchased online at eastwestplayers.org or by calling (213) 625-7000.
 
Director Tim Dang assembles an incredible multicultural cast in East West Players’ Spring Awakening. “Our casting is more intentional than colorblind. The mission of East West Players is to portray the Asian American experience. In this production, the Asian American experience does not live in a vacuum, or a silo, or a monolithic community. This production emphasizes the intersectionality of our youth today. Our casting is race conscious and race specific.
 
“By 2042, America is projected to be majority POC (people of color). It is with intention that many of our performers are of mixed heritage, mixed-race, bi-racial, hapa, or bi-cultural. These performers represent the youth of a generation that is already majority POC. The balance of power shifting to the new majority makes EWP’s production of Spring Awakening that much more different from other productions that have come before us.”
 
Tamlyn Tomita, a longtime East West Players community member and artist whose extensive Hollywood and screen credits comprise such roles as Waverly Jong in Joy Luck Club and Kumiko in The Karate Kid Part II, makes her East West Players mainstage debut in Spring Awakening. Tomita plays the Adult Women of the musical, including Frau Bergmann and Fanny Gabor, the mothers of Wendla and Melchior respectively. Stage and screen actor Daniel Blinkoff (Bob Cratchit in South Coast Repertory’s A Christmas Carol), Tomita’s husband, stars opposite her in the Adult Men roles of Spring Awakening. 
 
The cast of Spring Awakening is led by Mia Sempertegui* (Sister Act, Beehive: The 60’s Musical) as Wendla Bergman, Thomas K. Winter* (The Secret Garden, The Last Five Years) as Melchior Gabor, Marcus Phillips* (The Prom Nat’l Tour, La Mirada Theatre’s Joseph…Technicolor Dreamcoat) as Moritz Stiefel, Madison Grepo* (Evita, Anything Goes) as Ilse Neumann, Tamlyn Tomita* as the Adult Women, and Daniel Blinkoff* as the Adult Men. The cast comprises Jaylen Baham* (Chance Theater’s Next to Normal & Ride the Cyclone, In the Heights) as Georg Zirschnitz, James Everts* (Newsies, Legally Blonde) as Otto Lämmermeier, Genki Hall (Evita, You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown) as Ernst Röbel, Sarah Marie Hernandez* (Lizzie: The Musical, Spring Awakening, Songs for a New World) as Martha Bessell, Justine Rafael* (EWP’s On This Side of the World, Paris Las Vegas’ Bat Out Of Hell) as Thea, Eric Renna* (A Chorus Line, Next to Normal, West Side Story) as Hänschen Rilow, and Leianna Weaver* (Musical Theatre West’s The Wizard of Oz) as Anna.
 
CJ Cruz (1660 Vine) and Evan Pascual (Little Shop of Horrors, Sister Act) understudy this production, along with Kay Sibal (The Wallis’ Invincible: The Musical, Shakespeare Center Los Angeles & After Hours Theatre Company’s The Tempest: An Immersive Experience) who also is the production’s Assistant Music Director.
 
The creative team includes direction by Tim Dang, choreography by Preston Mui, fight direction by Cesar Cipriano, intimacy direction by Carly DW Bones, music direction by Marc Macalintal, scenic design by Christopher Scott Murillo, properties design by Glenn Michael Baker, costume design by JoJo Siu, hair & makeup design by Gillian Woodson, lighting design by Derek Jones, sound design by Cricket Myers, and stage management by Brandon Hong Cheng*.
 
Tim Dang (Director) is the recipient of the Society of Directors and Choreographers’ Zelda Fichandler Award for transforming the regional theatre arts landscape through theatre. His career spans over four decades as theater director, producer, arts administrator, cultural diversity and equity advocate, adjunct lecturer, writer, and performer. He started out as an actor performing on stage at East West Players, appearing on television episodics, and still performs voiceover work today.
 
He is producing artistic director emeritus of East West Players (EWP), having run the longest running professional theatre of color in the United States for 23 years through 2016 producing over a hundred plays and musicals.
 
For six years, Tim was adjunct lecturer teaching directing and dramaturgy at the USC School of Dramatic Arts and prepared emerging artists about the audition process, industry business essentials, and networking at AMDA College for the Performing Arts.
 
East West Players directing credits include La Cage Aux Folles, Beijing Spring twice (world premiere), Follies, A Little Night Music, Chess, Krunk Fu Battle Battle (world premiere), Mysterious Skin (Los Angeles premiere), Imelda: A New Musical (world premiere/New York premiere), Pippin, Equus, Voices From Okinawa (world premiere), Passion (Los Angeles premiere), The Nisei Widows Club, A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum, Pacific Overtures (LA Ovation Award), Sweeney Todd twice (LA Ovation Award), Canton Jazz Club, F.O.B., Merrily We Roll Along, and Into The Woods.
 
He has also directed at Singapore Repertory Theatre, AMDA, PanAsian Repertory Theatre, GeVa Theater Center (NY), Sierra Madre Playhouse, L.A. Theatre Works, MainStreet Theatre Company, Mark Taper Forum New Works Festival, Celebration Theatre (CA), and Perseverance Theatre (AK).
 
As a writer, Tim wrote the book and lyrics for the musical Beijing Spring; the lyrics for the musical Canton Jazz Club; and co-wrote the trilogy of comedies The Nisei Widows Club, The Nisei Widows Club: Holiday On Thin Ice and The Nisei Widows Club: How Tomi Got Her Groove Back.
 
Tim has been heard in video games and animated shows such as Diablo IV: Welcome to Hell, Spidey and His Amazing Friends, The Ghost of Tsushima, World of Warcraft: The Mists of Pandaria, Curious George, and Avatar: The Last Airbender.
 
He is an alumnus of the University of Southern California School of Theatre.

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