How Deaf West’s Spring Awakening Brought New Diversity to Broadway
When it was announced that Spring Awakening, the 2007 Best Musical Tony winner, would get a full revival on Broadway in the fall of 2015, the reaction from most non-theater-geeks was puzzlement. Why would a show that just closed in January of 2009 – a show that received glowing reviews and was hailed as a new vanguard of contemporary musical theater – get a revival so soon? But it’s worth discussing why Spring Awakening, which closed January 24th, saw a spot on most “Best Musicals of 2015” lists because of what it added to its roster – the Deaf community, and American Sign Language (ASL).
Deaf West, a theater company based in North Hollywood, California, seeks to create content that improves artistic and cultural opportunities for the Deaf and hard of hearing community in the LA area. It does this by producing original and adapted content that integrates both ASL and Deaf/hard of hearing actors. One of their more famous productions, a revival of the Mark Twain-based musical Big River, made it to Broadway in 2003 where it won a Tony for Excellence in Theater. One of the stars of that production, Michael Arden (Bare, The Times They Are a-Changin’, Hunchback of Notre Dame), went on to perform in Deaf West’s adaptation of Stephen Schwartz’s Pippin at the Mark Taper Forum, and was offered an opportunity to direct something for the company.
In 2013, he and Andy Mientus (Smash, Les Miserables, Spring Awakening 1st National Tour) co-directed a workshop of Spring Awakening for Deaf West in an attempt to find out if the show would be a good fit for ASL. They continuously worked on the concept with ASL masters such as Linda Bove (Sesame Street) and choreographer Spencer Liff (So You Think You Can Dance) to create the bilingual version that that opened in September at the Brooks-Atkinson Theater in New York City.
The 2006 Spring Awakening, with music by pop-rock songwriter Duncan Sheik (known for his 1996 hit “Barely Breathing”) and book and lyrics by Stephen Sater, was a hit with critics and young people, and it made stars out of its leads Jonathan Groff (Frozen, Hamilton), John Gallagher, Jr. (American Idiot, The Newsroom) and Lea Michele (Glee, Scream Queens). It could be argued that it was the first musical to truly find a following in the age of social media – fan groups sprang up all over Facebook, and the fanbase was compared to that of the “Rentheads” that would sleep overnight in front of the Nederlander Theater to win lottery tickets for Jonathan Larson’s Rent. Based on the controversial 1891 play by Frank Wedekind, the musical addressed teenagers and sexuality in a way that hadn’t really been seen on Broadway before. It also dealt frankly with sex, rape, incest, masturbation, domestic abuse, suicide, and pre-legalized abortion.
Deaf West’s Spring Awakening uses hard of hearing and profoundly Deaf as well as fully hearing actors, but unlike Big River or Pippin, the Deaf community as well as ASL are fully integrated into the actual plotline – despite zero changes to music and the book. In a written note found in the playbill, Michael Arden discusses the infamous Milan Conference of 1880, in which signing was banned in favor of “oralism”, or lip-reading. As a result, Deaf people felt as if they couldn’t truly communicate with others as their primary form of language was taken away, which adds to the musical’s overall theme of communication or lack thereof between adults and children. Arden found that this connected well to Wedekind’s text, originally an indictment of the control exerted by adults over children, writing “This exploration of adolescence within the context of this dark time in Deaf history serves as a haunting reminder of the perils of miseducation and miscommunication (Playbill).” The addition of Deaf history to this musical only serves to heighten the stakes of all involved. Truly, you can’t really see how the show could be any different from what it is now.
The revival uses the parallels between the misunderstandings in adolescence and the miscommunication that can occur between Deaf and hearing people to full effect. “I’ve gone to school with kids who didn’t know how to put in a tampon, didn’t know how to put on a pad, because their parents haven’t communicated, their parents don’t know sign,” Joshua Castille (Switched At Birth), the hard of hearing actor who portrays shy student Ernst, said in an interview with Out Magazine. This is seen in Deaf West’s Spring Awakening when Wendla Bergman, portrayed by Deaf actress Sandra Mae Frank, becomes pregnant after an encounter with rebellious hearing student Melchior Gabor, and when confronted by her mother, Wendla frantically signs (and then screams) “You didn’t tell me!”, hearkening back to an earlier scene in which Frau Bergman struggles to find the words to sign the act of conception to her daughter. She is literally incapable of communicating how sex works, which creates the circumstances that build to the show’s climax.
The entire company works together to make sure that the all the actors are integrated seamlessly. There are light and physical actor cues to signal to the Deaf actors that they need to start signing, and when signing is not being used, text is splashed across the back wall of the set. In addition, two extra subwoofers have been installed below the stage; Daniel Durant, who plays anguished student Moritz, is profoundly Deaf (he has never heard sound before in his life) but he can feel vibration, and the subwoofers help him connect to what’s occurring around him. The entire Brooks-Atkinson Theater has been reworked to be fully accessible to Deaf actors and patrons.
The Deaf actors are shadowed by hearing performers who speak and sing (most of them also play the show’s music), and their positions on stage directly reflect the relationship the Deaf actor has with their “voice.” Treshelle Edmonds, the Deaf actress portraying Martha, is always seen standing apart from her Voice. In contrast, Castille says of Ernst’s voice – portrayed by hearing actor Daniel Stewart, who also plays piano for the show – “I think I realized that he was my imaginary best friend…Ernst is one of the happiest in the show, he’s one that has the most understanding of self, because he’s in touch with his best friend, his subconscious, his voice.” As a result of this workshopping of the part, Stewart and Castille are constantly connected throughout the show in direct juxtaposition to Martha and her voice actor.
The physical way in which the Voice is portrayed also can directly inform the inner life of the character through their clothing choices. Alex Boniello (American Idiot), who portrays the voice of Moritz, wears a hoodie and skinny jeans and plays an electric guitar with a stick microphone, as if Moritz imagines himself as a Billy Joe Armstrong-like rock star. In contrast, Katie Boeck (the Voice of Wendla) wears soft, muted colors in similar styles to Wendla and plays an acoustic guitar. Standing as a bridge between the Deaf and the hearing is hearing actor Austin McKenzie, making an astonishing Broadway (and professional) debut as the rebellious and sexually knowledgeable Melchior Gabor, whose love for Wendla and friendship with Moritz (and his desire to help Moritz understand his sexual awakening) drives the play forward. (Fun fact: McKenzie, who studied ASL in college, originally applied to the Deaf West production to become an interpreter, and was asked to audition for Melchior instead!)
The Deaf component is not the only reason this revival is so groundbreaking. Actress Ali Stroker, who portrays feisty Anna, is the first wheelchair-using actor to perform on the Great White Way. There have been wheelchairs used on Broadway stages in the past, but never an actor who actually uses one in the entire history of Broadway. The Brooks-Atkinson Theater has been fully equipped to accommodate Stroker (she uses the ground floor dressing room and ramps have been installed) but in the show itself, aside from a smart joke near the top, Anna’s wheelchair is never mentioned. It is simply there. Ali is also known for her roles on The Glee Project and various regional theater productions, and in her program bio, she states “Any limitation can be an opportunity.”
The diversity that has been seen on Broadway in the past year and a half has been nothing short of extraordinary. In 2015, Fun Home – adapted from the famous Alison Bechdel comic, which chronicles the life of a lesbian cartoonist and her complicated relationship with her closeted father – beat more traditional fare like American in Paris for Best Musical. This season, we have rapturous revivals of The Color Purple as well as new musicals like Allegiance which dives into the lives of Japanese citizens in WWII internment camps. And of course, there’s Hamilton, which sets the American Revolution to a hip-hop beat. Diversity is swinging hard on Broadway this year.
As a lifelong Broadway fan, I couldn’t be more excited about this spike in diverse entertainment that is finally starting to reflect its widespread and diverse audience. But one of the most extraordinary experiences I’ve ever had in a theater came when I saw this current production of Spring Awakening. I sat in the mezzanine, between two hard of hearing people and their families (they were signing to each other before I came to my seat), and at the close of one number in the show, every light on the stage turned on. I looked around my section and saw literally dozens of audience members holding up their hands and waving them – the ASL variation of applause. I was surrounded by Deaf patrons, who were finally able to see themselves represented on a Broadway stage as the complex, fascinating, funny, emotional, and sexual beings that they are. In a season that has broken the mold for racial boundaries, Spring Awakening brings that same visibility to disability.
Spring Awakening closed Sunday, January 24th after an extremely limited run, but a national tour of this production has already been announced to start sometime in 2017. The Brooks-Atkinson Theater will next welcome the musical adaptation of the film Waitress, with music and lyrics by Sara Bareilles.
Alysa Auriemma is a teacher, writer, activist, geek, cosplayer, and her friend group’s feminist killjoy. Her blog, The Curious Ally Cat, has seen notice by newspapers such as the Hartford Courant and the New York Times. She is in the process of writing a series of fantasy novels for self-publication. In her spare time, she enjoys participating in community theater, solo trips to the city to see Broadway shows, really good Mexican food, and arguing with friends about which Mighty Ducks movie is the best (D2).
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