Tom Hulce: Casting Secrets from Spring Awakening
About the author:
As an actor, Tom Hulce earned an Academy Award nomination for the title role in Amadeus, an Emmy Award for playing Peter Patrone in The Heidi Chronicles and a Tony nomination for playing Lt. Daniel Kaffee in A Few Good Men. When he finally won a Tony, it was for his behind-the-scenes role as lead producer of the hit musical Spring Awakening. Though his youthful cast may not have realized it at first, Hulce has a deep understanding of what they're going through. After all, he was just 21 himself when he assumed the lead in the original Broadway production of another psychologically complex show, Equus. Hulce discussed the surprising Equus/Spring Awakening connection—and the challenge of casting and re-casting his award-winning musical—in this essay for Broadway.com.
My interest in Spring Awakening began way back in 1974, when I was understudying Peter Firth in the original Broadway company of Equus, my first job in New York as an actor. Thirty-five years later, Daniel Radcliffe is about to make his Broadway debut as Alan Strang, the part Peter and then I played. Equus had originated in London at the National Theatre in repertory with the first uncensored English language version of Spring Awakening, and Peter played Melchior. Twenty-five years later, as I was starting to produce, one of the first things I wanted to do was commission an opera based on Wedekind's play.
Around the same time, I learned that Steven Sater, Duncan Sheik and Michael Mayer were working on a musical version of Spring Awakening. When Michael told me they wanted to keep the setting of the story in 1890s Germany but have the songs sung in a contemporary idiom, I thought it was a brilliantly theatrical idea. During the next four years, they did a number of readings and workshops, and Michael also directed the film I produced of Michael Cunningham's A Home at the End of the World, with a score by Duncan and two songs by Duncan and Steven. The month the film opened, I offered to join them and complete the adventure with Spring Awakening, wherever it might take us.
There was never any question in our minds that we wanted to cast the show with the best young actors we could find—as close in age as possible to the characters in the story. The only question was whether we could find performers who had the ability to do everything the piece required. It's not enough to be able to sing the score in Duncan's indie-rock style—the actors must "live" in the scenes in way that's credible. Because the story is not set in contemporary times, the language requires the same skills needed for a classic play. That definitely limited the group of people possible for us to consider.
What can I say about the original cast? They were all special. In addition to their great talent, all of them had a palpable sense of who they are as people, which was very important to us. We and they were fortunate to have an extraordinary amount of time to work and grow, first in a workshop and then rehearsals, followed by a long preview period and then the off-Broadway run at the Atlantic, more rehearsals, and then the Broadway run. When you're working someplace like the Atlantic where everyone is in one huge dressing room and the plumbing facilities are limited, it's a great ensemble builder!
The beautiful thing about Spring Awakening is that once the show became known, actors from all over the country started coming to us—they knew the show, and they were excited about doing it. Last November, and again in March, we collected the best people we'd found from all over North America, so the pool we draw from is truly continental; our current casts are like a map of the United States and parts of Canada. Now that the show is going out on tour, we'll have calls in those cities so we can stay current with our list of candidates. In addition, we have an ongoing invitation to audition online at springawakening.com. Yes, we've hired people through those video auditions—although not without spending a good deal of time in person.
Every role in the show is challenging to replace, but our goal has not been to duplicate what was done before. Our three Melchiors—Jonathan Groff, Kyle Riabko and now Hunter Parrish—have come from different performing backgrounds, Jonathan from the traditional theater and Kyle from a burgeoning singer/songwriter career in Canada. Hunter is the first person we've cast in the show to come from an acclaimed television show, Weeds, and the higher profile that entails. He's a terrific actor, but the stealth weapon is that he also has a great rock voice. We're very excited to welcome him to Broadway.
Spring Awakening continues to be one of the most unexpected and extraordinary adventures of my working life. In the past week alone, we've sat down with the staffs of both the Japanese and Korean theaters that will present the show in their countries. We're starting the final casting process for the London company, and we'll begin casting in Germany in October. The national company has just begun their first performances on the west coast. And of course, the eight-time Tony Award winning Broadway production continues to thrive as we celebrate Hunter and our remarkable "next generation" cast and their unique groove leading us into the fall season.
All of this success is beyond what one might modestly have imagined for our piece, which is such an unusual combination of serious and comedic, a truly complex story with ravishingly beautiful musical sequences. Even with the great excitement about our national and worldwide launching, the fact that Spring Awakening has been so potently embraced in the challenging world of Broadway remains incredibly sweet and makes me feel both encouraged and more than a little grateful.
